3 total
The ODSP Director and Social Benefits Tribunal have discretion to forgo recovery of benefit overpayments.
The appellant, a disabled senior, received an overpayment of ODSP income support due to an innocent reporting error regarding his rent.
The Director ordered full repayment.
The Social Benefits Tribunal reduced the recovery to half the amount, but the Divisional Court overturned this, finding no discretion to forgive a Crown debt.
The Court of Appeal allowed the appeal, holding that the Director's discretion under section 14(4) of the ODSPA includes the authority to forgo recovery of an overpayment, and that the Tribunal has the same discretion on appeal.
Child support paid to a custodial parent is not income attributable to a disabled adult under the ODSPA.
The Director of the Ontario Disability Support Program appealed a decision holding that child support payments made to the mother of a disabled adult were not 'income' attributable to the disabled adult under the ODSPA.
The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, finding that characterizing child support paid to a custodial parent as the disabled adult's income would undermine the disabled adult's right to apply independently for benefits and would unfairly discriminate against disabled children of separated parents.
The child support payments are not payments made 'to or on behalf of or for the benefit of' the disabled adult until the mother actually uses them for the adult's benefit, at which point exemptions for disability-related expenses may apply.
Tribunal decision granting special diet allowance for hypoproteinemia quashed due to lack of evidentiary support.
The applicant sought judicial review of a Human Rights Tribunal decision finding that the respondent was discriminated against due to the lack of a special diet allowance for hypoproteinemia under the Ontario Disability Support Program.
The Divisional Court reviewed the Tribunal's decision on a reasonableness standard.
The Court found that there was no evidence before the Tribunal to support its finding that eating additional protein from food sources is generally recognized in the Ontario medical community as an appropriate treatment for hypoproteinemia.
Consequently, the Tribunal's decision was deemed unreasonable and quashed regarding the respondent's claim for a special diet allowance for elevated protein requirements.
