Northern Ont. man wins precedent-setting fight for benefits after suffering brain injury

A northern Ontario man has won his fight for benefits from the company that insures his camper-trailer, even though he wasn’t driving it when he was injured.

Clayton Madore of St. Charles, southeast of Sudbury, suffered a devastating brain injury in June 2019 after falling off his camper trailer.

He was getting it ready for a family trip to the Maritimes. His insurance company initially denied him benefits, but that was reversed in a decision released Jan. 3.

Madore told CTV News he doesn’t remember getting injured, only waking up 17 days later in hospital with his son, Jason, at his side.

“He said to me, ‘you know where you’re at?’ and I said, ‘well, I don’t know -- don’t look familiar to me,” Madore said.

“I looked around and everything and (Jason) said, ‘Dad, you’re in the hospital.’”

Madore’s skull was broken in three places, both wrists were fractured, along with his ankle and his cheeks and forehead had to be restructured.

After 78 days in hospital, Madore was able to go home, where his wife was waiting for him.

“It’s very emotional for a wife to see all that,” his wife Agathe said.

“This accident has really, really changed all of our lives. Things we used to do together, we don’t do anymore. I had to look after Clayton. There’s a lot of things, maybe the help we could have got, but we didn’t … I did what I could do all on my own and I was going through cancer myself so it was quite heavy for us.”

After 78 days in hospital, Madore was able to go home, where his wife, Agathe, was waiting for him. (Molly Frommer/CTV News)

Barrie law firm Oatley Vigmond said Intact Insurance denied Madore’s benefit claim but that decision was successfully appealed.

Lawyer Jordan Kofman said there’s a lesson here for the average person.

“You don’t need to be a driver of a vehicle or a passenger in a moving vehicle to be entitled to accident benefits,” Kofman said.

“You can access accident benefits if you’re maintaining a vehicle on the side of the road, or if you’re filling it with gas or if you’re loading it for a trip. I think people also have to realize that the courts are here to protect you.”

Kofman said depending on whether the insurance company appeals the ruling, Madore could soon receive the benefits he has been waiting for since the accident.