I often have clients telling me, “Let’s go for a million,” or “I won’t settle for anything less than $300,000.” Well, in Canada, the Supreme Court set the limit on what one can receive as compensation for pain and suffering.
The limit was set in a 1978 decision in Andrews v. Grand & Toy. The Court decided that the highest award would be $100,000 for someone who became a quadriplegic. All less severe injuries would go down from there. That $100,000 is approximately $350,000 in 2012 dollars, which is the upper limit today.
Of course, loss of wages, future disability and future care costs can add hundreds of thousands of dollars to the compensation, but those are “hard” costs/losses, as opposed to “compensation.”