Medical Records Matter in Proving Injuries

In the recent case of Tahamtanzadeh v. Borsboom, 2021 BCSC 1059, a plaintiff’s failure to report injuries to health care providers resulted in a determination by the court that the plaintiff did not actually suffer those injuries.

In this case, the plaintiff alleged that she suffered back pain as a result of a motor vehicle accident. However, she did not seek any medical attention at all for four months after the accident, and did not mention any back pain to her doctor at that visit. It was not until nine months after the accident that she mentioned any issues with her back to her doctor, and then there was no further mention of back pain for another year. She had another incident in the meantime which could have caused the alleged back pain.

Because of this lack of reporting of back pain to her doctors, the court did not believe that it was caused by the accident. The court did not compensate the plaintiff for her claimed back injury.

Medical records do matter to the court. A failure to report symptoms to a doctor could be interpreted by the court as an absence of those symptoms.