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Road rager ordered to pay $800K to North Vancouver beating victim

Damages awarded in civil suit following 2011 assault with ball bat
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A man convicted of beating a North Vancouver tow-truck driver with a baseball bat at the side of Highway 1 in a road rage incident has been ordered to pay more than $800,000 to his victim.

The incident happened on Jan. 1, 2011 when Gerardo Arguello and Ryan McCaffery got into an altercation while merging onto the Ironworkers Memorial Second Narrow Crossing, according to court documents. The two exchanged insults and began jockeying back and forth for position across the Ironworkers and up the Cut. Near the top of the Cut, Arguello slammed on his brakes, causing a fender bender between the two.

“Mr. Arguello got out of the driver’s side of his vehicle and asked his son to hand him an aluminum baseball bat,” B.C. Supreme Court Justice Heather MacNaughton wrote in her decision. “Mr. Arguello repeatedly struck Mr. McCaffery with the baseball bat, causing him serious but non-life-threatening injuries to his head, chest, left arm, hand, and wrist.”

Arguello was convicted of assault with a weapon and assault causing bodily harm and given a six-month conditional sentence and probation. McCaffery, a 28-year-old father of two, filed a civil suit in 2011.

In 2014, a judge found Arguello was 100 per cent liable for McCaffery’s injuries. In a decision handed down Aug. 18, MacNaughton ordered Arguello pay $819,016.40 in damages in the wake of the permanent injuries and loss of quality of life he dealt to McCaffery.

Prior to the incident, McCaffery had been an accomplished competitive wrestler in high school who took pride in his physical strength as an adult. Because of his injuries, he was unable to return to his work as a tow-truck driver, a job he enjoyed because it allowed him to help people stranded at the side of the road, MacNaughton noted.

Since then, McCaffery has suffered from daily headaches, which vary in intensity, but never go away, he testified. Three to four times a week, he has intense headaches, which can last up to five hours long.

More serious, however, was the injury to his arm, which he described as feeling “like a propane torch was being run down his arm.” He continues to feel “agonizing, burning and shooting pain through to his fingertips” and he no longer has full use of his left thumb, MacNaughton noted.

“It is agonizing to have his children or spouse try and hold his hand, and medical treatments are extremely painful,” she said. “He cannot lift or hold anything with his left hand, even something as light as a coffee cup.”

The incident also left McCaffery’s personality transformed, going from a “highly energetic, positive, and socially active individual to being depressed, anxious, socially withdrawn, and embarrassed and humiliated at the physical transformation that his arm injury has caused,” the judge found.

The incident has also impacted his family life, leaving his young sons “walking on eggshells,” so they do not upset or frustrate him, MacNaughton also found.

“I conclude that at the age of 28, in the few moments in which the incident occurred, Mr. McCaffery became a different person. The effects of the assault will redefine Mr. McCaffery for the rest of his life, both physically and psychologically. He no longer sees himself as a ‘big strong guy’ who could do, and did, nearly everything,” she said.

As a result, the judge awarded McCaffery $200,000 in damages for pain, suffering, and loss of enjoyment of life, $323,900 for loss of past and future earning capacity, $242,081 to compensate for his loss of ability to handle household chores, and $30,000 in punitive damages to send a message of condemnation of Arguello’s behaviour. As well, Arguello will be responsible for more than $20,000 in special and medical costs.

McCaffery has since received more post-secondary education and now works as an insurance adjuster.

During the trial, Arguello did not call any evidence in his own defence.

“In a statement he gave, and in his brief closing submissions, he acknowledged that Mr. McCaffery suffered significant injuries and he apologized to him. He also asked me to consider the financial and other hardship he has suffered as a result of the incident,” MacNaughton wrote in her decision.