An unmanned truck hit Marilyn Brown and her five-year-old son Dylan three years ago and it’s still costing her.
Brown was in a driveway of a friend’s house in Feb. 2006, when an unmanned truck burst out of a garage nearby and hit them both.
“It ran over my son and I ran to get him and it ran over me. It smashed into my car and pushed it up a hill,” she said.
Brown said she doesn’t know what happened, just that the man who started the truck was in the garage when it lurched forward. Her car was fixed, but she said the trauma and aftermath weren’t fully paid for.
“It cost me an incredible amount of brain cells watching my son get run over,” she said. “And I wasn’t able to work for six months.”
Soon after the province set a cap of $2,500 on most auto-related injuries in 2003, a group of victims launched a challenge. They said the legislation discriminated against people suffering from certain injuries, but their case was thrown out of Supreme Court on Monday. Yesterday a spokesperson for the group said they’re appealing the decision.
“It is our strong belief that Justice (Walter) Goodfellow’s decision is out of step with the treatment of injury victims across the country,” said Susan Hanrahan, chair of the Nova Scotia Coalition Against No-Fault Insurance. “We knew whatever the decision was, there would be an appeal.”
Anna Marie MacDonald, a victim of three car accidents, said an appeal will likely take several more years, but it will be worth it.
“It’s very financially frustrating because you have to pay for your medical costs,” she said, adding the $2,500 didn’t even pay for all of her chiropractic treatments.
Luckily they’re not overwhelmed by legal costs: their lawyer, Barry Mason, is working on this case for free.
