What’s New: In Brief (January 30, 2008)

There’s a new insurance litigation boutique in Toronto called Thomas, Gold & Pettingill LLP.
And if its roster of lawyers includes names recognizable from the insurance litigation section of Cassels Brock & Blackwell, that’s because seven of the lawyers in the new boutique firm came from Cassels Brock.
As reported in the National Post, Cassels Brock’s insurance litigation lawyers, with the blessing of the firm’s partners, have branched off to establish their own boutique firm specializing in insurance law.
The partners of the new firm include Bruce Thomas (a retired partner who nevertheless worked at Cassels full-time), Ian Gold, Alex Pettingill, D’Arcy McGoey, Chris Schnarr, Nadine Nasr and Tom Donnelly.
Gold said as a boutique firm, Thomas Gold would have more opportunity to accept legal work from larger law firms firms that otherwise would not want to hand their insurance work directly over to their competition at Cassels Brock.

Vancouver’s Provincial Court has fined David Roland Messina of Vancouver Cdn$5,000 for attempting to defraud ICBC and avoid paying taxes on a vehicle purchase.
In B.C. Provincial Court Justice Maria Giardini’s reasons for sentence, the judge reinforced that the integrity of BC’s vehicle licensing and insurance system “depends on all of us doing our bit and being honest and doing what we are supposed to do.”
Messina on June 1, 2005, reported his 1999 Dodge Viper stolen after he parked near the intersection of Robson and Jervis Street, in Vancouver.
Later that day, Messina contacted ICBC to initiate his claim.
According to Messina’s statement, he purchased the Viper in June 2004 for Cdn$75,000. But while investigating the claim, ICBC uncovered that in 2004
Messina had provided ICBC with a letter and vehicle transfer forms indicating the truck was a “gift,” and therefore the purchase price was zero.
By declaring the vehicle a gift, Messina did not pay PST for transferring the vehicle from the previous owner.
ICBC contacted the previous owner who stated Messina paid Cdn$68,000 for the vehicle. In addition, the ICBC uncovered a 2004 ad Messina placed in the Buy and Sell magazine to sell the Viper.