Sexual Assault/Abuse Litigation

Damages in Sexual Assault/Abuse Cases Before deciding to commence any type of litigation, it is important to know how much your claim is (reasonably) worth. This is an important discussion you should have with a lawyer. The following is intended to provide some helpful introductory information to have an informative and efficient discussion with a lawyer experienced in this area. It is not intended as legal advice and it may be incomplete and/or out of date. In civil sexual assault/abuse cases, there tend to be 5 major "heads" (or categories) of damages: 1) Pain and suffering damages (also referred to as general and aggravated damages, or non-pecuniary damages) - In civil sexual assault cases, these generally refer to psychological harms a person has suffered as a result of the assault/abuse. Most times, there aren’t any significant physical harms, like broken bones etc., but those types of injuries would be covered by pain and suffering damages as well; 2) Income loss damage

The following is not intended as legal advice. If you have been the victim of sexual abuse or sexual assault  you should contact a lawyer experienced in this area to seek legal advice. My background and contact information can be found on the "About Me" page. For ease of reference, I can be contacted at: T: 416-363-1867, Ext. 225 E-mail: mwilchesky@rochongenova.com  1) What is the difference between criminal proceedings and a civil action? Remedies The first thing to understand is that these proceedings are fundamentally different. A criminal proceeding involves the prosecution of the perpetrator of the assault by the government (i.e. the "Crown", in Ontario). The consequences to the perpetrator (i.e. the accused), if convicted of the offence, could involve, among other things, jail time, a "conditional sentence", a fine, various conditions such as a "no contact" order, an order that the perpetrator remain a certain distance away from the victim