Dr. Steinberg

The applicant claimed statutory accident benefits following a motor vehicle accident in November 2009.

She sought medical, caregiver, attendant care, and housekeeping benefits.

The arbitrator found the applicant's evidence to be vague, insubstantial, and prone to exaggeration.

The arbitrator preferred the evidence of the insurer's occupational therapist, who observed the applicant in her home and concluded she did not suffer a substantial inability to perform caregiving or housekeeping tasks.

The applicant failed to prove her entitlement to the claimed benefits on a balance of probabilities.

The application was dismissed, with the issues of a special award and expenses deferred.

The appellants appealed a trial judgment dismissing their medical malpractice action.

The trial judge found that the obstetrician negligently failed to obtain informed consent for a mid-forceps delivery, which caused the infant's brachial plexus injury and brain damage.

However, the trial judge concluded that even with proper disclosure, the doctor would have recommended the forceps delivery and the mother would have consented.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the trial judge's factual findings on causation were supported by the evidence and did not amount to palpable and overriding error.

The insured died from an amniotic fluid embolism during childbirth.

Her husband claimed the accidental death benefit under her life insurance policy.

The insurer denied the claim, arguing the death was not an accident and was excluded as a physical illness.

The motions judge found the death was an accident and not an illness.

The Court of Appeal allowed the insurer's appeal, holding that the expectation test for accidental death does not apply to deaths from natural causes, and that an amniotic fluid embolism is a physical illness within the policy's exclusion clause.

The appellants appealed the dismissal of a medical negligence action arising from gynecological surgery in which sutures injured the patient’s ureter.

The court held that the trial judge misapprehended the evidence concerning the surgeon’s final inspection and failed to apply the only expert evidence addressing the precise operative circumstances, with the result that negligence should have been found.

The court upheld the trial judge’s rejection of causation between the surgery and the patient’s long-term fibromyalgia, but increased general damages for pain and suffering from $20,000 to $28,000 by using the date of the first surgery as the start of compensable harm.

The appeal was allowed, judgment for the plaintiffs was substituted, and the appellants were awarded trial and appeal costs on a party-and-party basis.

The applicant union applied to set aside a Review Officer's order that identified the Manager of Physical Operations as the comparable male job class for registered nurses under the Pay Equity Act.

The parties had used a point factor job evaluation system, and the Review Officer had selected the male job class closest in points.

The Tribunal panel split three ways.

The Chair revoked the order, rejecting the closest male comparator and banding approaches, and directed the use of a male wage line approach to redress systemic gender discrimination.

Two members dissented from the Chair's jurisdictional authority to order a wage line approach.

One dissenting member found that the highest paid lower valued male job class should be the comparator under section 6(3)(b) of the Act.

The other dissenting member upheld the Review Officer's original order.