Summaries Sunday: OnPoint Legal Research

• Author: Administrator
• Date: January 25, 2015

One Sunday each month OnPoint Legal Research provides Slaw with an extended summary of, and counsel’s commentary on, an important case from the British Columbia, Alberta, or Ontario court of appeal.

Fraser Health Authority v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal, 2014 BCCA 499

Areas of Law:

Administrative law; Jurisdiction; Patent unreasonableness; Workers’ compensation

~It is in error for an administrative tribunal to interpret its power to reopen an appeal to cure a jurisdictional defect as extending to include a review to determine whether its own decision was patently unreasonable.~

BACKGROUND: The Appellants were all laboratory technicians who developed breast cancer while employed at Mission Memorial Hospital between 1970 and 2004. They brought workers’ compensation claims, which were denied at the first level of assessment on the basis that the workplace had not been shown to have caused or materially contributed to their cancer. The Review Division also denied the claims, but a three member panel at the Workers Compensation Appeal Tribunal (WCAT) found that the burden of proof had been met in establishing a causal connection. The Respondent Fraser Health Authority (FHA) sought a reconsideration of this decision on the basis of patent unreasonableness. A WCAT panel denied the application for reconsideration. FHA then sought judicial review of WCAT’s second decision. It sought a declaration that WCAT erred in finding the cancer to have been an occupational disease due to the workers’ employment, an order that the original decision of WCAT be set aside and the decision of the Review Division confirmed, an order that the reconsideration decision be set aside, and in the alternative an order that both WCAT decisions be set aside and the matter remitted to a new WCAT panel with appropriate directions. The chambers judge noted that the parties were in agreement that the standard of review for the original decision was patent unreasonableness, while the standard of review for the reconsideration decision was correctness. The chambers judge did not address whether WCAT had the authority to reconsider the original decision for patent unreasonableness. He found the original decision patently unreasonable on the basis that there was no evidence to find causation, and found the reconsideration decision incorrect. He set aside both decisions and remitted the matter back to WCAT.

APPELLATE DECISION: The Court of Appeal sat a panel of five judges. Mr. Justice Chiasson for the majority dismissed the appeal. He considered the reconsideration decision a nullity because it was not authorized by the legislation. WCAT interpreted the common law power to reopen an appeal to cure a jurisdictional defect as “authority to set aside one of its decisions”, and considered the standard of review set out in s. 58 of the Administrative Tribunals Act (ATA) applicable. The legislation provides no parameters for a review of the merits of a WCAT decision by the tribunal itself. WCAT wrongly equated the common law power to reopen an appeal to cure a jurisdictional defect with the power of a court on judicial review. The actual review process at WCAT should be that the chair appoints a panel, which decides the appeal, and the...