Dimple Verma

The applicant requested a reconsideration of a Licence Appeal Tribunal decision that denied his claims for an income replacement benefit, attendant care, and medical benefits following a motor vehicle accident.

The applicant alleged the Tribunal violated procedural fairness, made errors of law and fact, heard false evidence, and sought to introduce new evidence.

The adjudicator dismissed the reconsideration request, finding no breach of procedural fairness in the Tribunal's procedural rulings or hearing management.

While acknowledging minor factual errors in the original decision, the adjudicator concluded they were inconsequential and would not have changed the outcome regarding causation of the applicant's physical and psychological impairments.

The applicant sought statutory accident benefits following a motor vehicle accident, including income replacement benefits, medical benefits for PRP therapy, and attendant care benefits.

The Tribunal found that the applicant's physical impairments, specifically severe osteoarthritis in his hips, and his psychological impairments were not caused by the accident but were pre-existing or related to his termination from employment.

The Tribunal preferred the evidence of the respondent's insurer examination assessors over the applicant's experts, noting the applicant's lack of credibility and his experts' failure to review pre-accident medical records.

The application was dismissed in its entirety.

The plaintiffs brought a motion for leave under Rule 39.02(2) to rely on a late expert engineering report in response to a pending summary judgment motion brought by the defendant property owners.

The defendants opposed the admission of the report, arguing it was produced after cross-examinations were completed and years after the incident.

The court granted leave, finding the report relevant, responsive to issues raised in cross-examination, and that its admission would not cause non-compensable prejudice to the defendants.

The plaintiffs were ordered to pay $5,000 in costs on a set-off basis for costs thrown away.

The appellant appealed a decision of the Criminal Injuries Compensation Board awarding compensation to her former son-in-law for injuries she caused him.

The appellant argued she was denied procedural fairness because the Board did not notify her of the hearing, despite her having returned a form explicitly checking a box to indicate she did not want notice.

She claimed the Board should have warned her of the potential impact of the hearing on a related civil action.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the appellant clearly waived her right to notice and the Board had no duty to provide legal advice regarding collateral civil proceedings.

The applicant filed a human rights application alleging discrimination based on disability and ethnic origin, claiming the respondent sabotaged his WSIB claim.

The respondent requested the Tribunal defer the application pending the conclusion of the ongoing WSIB proceeding.

The Tribunal found that deferral was the most fair, just, and expeditious way to proceed, given the clear overlap in facts and issues and the potential for inconsistent findings.

The application was deferred pending the conclusion of the WSIB proceeding.

The parties sought their legal expenses following an appeal of an arbitration pre-hearing decision that ordered the appellant to produce photographs from her Facebook profile.

The Director's Delegate considered the criteria under the Expense Regulation, noting the novelty of Facebook production issues at the appeal level and the appellant's initial failure to comply with an order to preserve the Facebook pages.

Balancing the relative merits of success and novelty, the Delegate ordered that each party bear their own legal expenses for the appeal.

The defendants brought a statutory “threshold motion” under s. 267.5 of the Insurance Act during a jury trial arising from a motor vehicle accident.

The issue was whether the plaintiff had sustained a permanent serious impairment of an important physical, mental, or psychological function sufficient to overcome the statutory bar to non‑pecuniary damages under Ontario’s auto insurance regime (Regulation 381/03, Bill 198).

The court assessed conflicting medical evidence regarding alleged chronic pain, spinal injury, and psychological impairment.

The court found the plaintiff lacked credibility, failed to comply with treatment recommendations, and that surveillance evidence undermined his reported limitations.

Preferring the defence orthopedic expert’s opinion that no objective pathology explained the complaints, the court held the plaintiff failed to meet the statutory threshold.

The appellant appealed an arbitrator's pre-hearing order requiring her to produce all photographs from her private Facebook profile.

The Director's Delegate found that the arbitrator erred in law by applying the 'semblance of relevance' test, holding that the correct test under the Statutory Powers Procedure Act and the Dispute Resolution Practice Code is 'relevance and reasonableness'.

The Delegate also held that private Facebook photographs are not a prima facie producible class of documents.

However, because the appellant's public Hi5 account contained photographs of her ziplining, which were relevant to her claimed inability to perform certain activities, the Delegate concluded that the private Facebook photographs were relevant and reasonably necessary in this specific case.

The appeal was dismissed and the production order was confirmed.

The appellant appealed a preliminary arbitration order requiring her to produce photographs from her Facebook account in a statutory accident benefits dispute.

The respondent argued the appeal should be rejected as premature.

The Director's Delegate declined to reject the appeal, noting the novelty and increasing importance of social media production issues at the Commission.

The request for a stay of the arbitrator's order was deferred pending confirmation that the Facebook evidence had been preserved, and the appellant was ordered to copy and preserve the relevant Facebook pages in the interim.

In an arbitration for statutory accident benefits, the insurer brought a motion seeking production of photographs and videos posted to the applicant's restricted Facebook account.

The insurer argued the images were relevant to the applicant's claim for income replacement and housekeeping benefits.

The arbitrator dismissed the motion, finding that the insurer failed to establish a reasonable relationship between the images and the issues to be arbitrated.

The arbitrator held that the potential relevance of social media images was too remote when weighed against the procedural burden, sensitivity, and practicality of producing them in an administrative tribunal context.

The applicant was injured in a motor vehicle accident while driving his former wife's uninsured vehicle.

He applied for statutory accident benefits from the insurer of the other vehicle.

The insurer argued the applicant was excluded from receiving income replacement and housekeeping benefits under s. 30(1)(a) of the Schedule because he knew or ought reasonably to have known the vehicle was uninsured.

The arbitrator found that the applicant was principally responsible for arranging insurance on the vehicle and had been notified of the policy's cancellation 14 months prior to the accident.

The arbitrator concluded the applicant ought reasonably to have known the vehicle was uninsured and dismissed his claims for those benefits.

The insurer sought its expenses of an arbitration proceeding against the applicant's former representative, Alon Rooz, personally.

The arbitrator found that the representative commenced the arbitration without the authority of the insured person, who had moved to Ukraine and had no knowledge of the claim.

The representative was ordered to personally pay the insurer's expenses of $4,621.17 pursuant to subsection 282(11.2) of the Insurance Act.

The applicant was injured while attempting to board a bus and claimed statutory accident benefits for medical and housekeeping expenses.

The insurer paid benefits for a few months but denied further claims.

At arbitration, the arbitrator found the applicant and his witnesses lacked credibility due to significant inconsistencies regarding his employment status and the extent of his impairment.

Relying on the insurer's medical experts, who found symptom magnification and no objective evidence of ongoing impairment or chronic pain syndrome, the arbitrator dismissed the claims for ongoing medical and housekeeping benefits, as well as the claim for a special award.

The applicant was injured in a motor vehicle accident and sought statutory accident benefits for chiropractic treatment, massage therapy, acupuncture, and prescription medication.

The insurer denied the claims.

The arbitrator found that the applicant failed to establish on a balance of probabilities that the disputed treatments and medications were reasonable and necessary as a consequence of the accident.

The applicant's testimony regarding the benefits of the treatment was vague, and the prescription medications were for pre-existing conditions.

The application for medical benefits was dismissed.

The applicant claimed statutory accident benefits from the insurer of another vehicle involved in the accident, as the vehicle he was driving was uninsured.

The insurer sought to exclude the applicant from benefits under section 30(1)(a) of the Schedule, alleging he knew or ought to have known the vehicle was uninsured.

At a preliminary issues hearing, the arbitrator ruled that the insurer bears the burden of proving all elements of the exclusion, including that the applicant was uninsured.

A ruling on the admissibility of a driver record search was deferred, and the insurer was ordered to pay $350 in costs thrown away due to an adjournment.

The applicant was injured in a motor vehicle accident and received statutory accident benefits.

The insurer issued a notice to stop paying benefits, but continued payments pending a Designated Assessment Centre (DAC) assessment.

The applicant filed for arbitration more than two years after the initial stoppage notice.

The arbitrator held that the two-year limitation period under s. 281(5) of the Insurance Act and s. 51(1) of the Schedule commenced upon the insurer's initial refusal to pay, and was not suspended by the DAC assessment or the continuation of payments.

The application was therefore statute-barred.

The applicant claimed statutory accident benefits following a motor vehicle accident.

The insurer denied that the applicant was involved or injured in the accident.

At the preliminary issue hearing, the applicant's counsel intended to rely on an affidavit from a student-at-law that referenced conversations the counsel had with the driver of the vehicle.

The arbitrator determined that the counsel was effectively acting as an unsworn witness, contrary to Rule 4.02 of the Rules of Professional Conduct.

The arbitrator adjourned the hearing on his own motion to allow the applicant's counsel to entrust the conduct of the hearing to another lawyer.

The insurer brought a motion for the production of the applicant's welfare records, employment records, and income tax returns in an arbitration for statutory accident benefits.

The arbitrator ordered the production of the medical and drug benefit portions of the welfare file, as well as employment records detailing job duties and hours, finding them relevant to the applicant's claim for medical and housekeeping benefits.

The request for income tax returns was dismissed as they were not relevant to the applicant's physical capabilities.

The insurer brought a motion seeking to compel the applicant to comply with a previous production order and to attend an insurer's orthopaedic assessment, or alternatively, to stay the arbitration until the applicant attended the assessment.

The arbitrator found that the previous production order still stood and no further order was necessary.

The arbitrator held that the Commission lacked jurisdiction to compel attendance at a medical examination.

Furthermore, the request for a stay was denied because the insurer's notice of examination failed to state the reasons for the examination, rendering it invalid under section 42(2) of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule.

The motion was dismissed with no costs awarded.

The applicant was injured in a motor vehicle accident and applied for statutory accident benefits, including income replacement benefits.

The applicant's counsel successfully moved to be removed from the record.

The applicant failed to attend the arbitration hearing, and the arbitrator proceeded in his absence.

Due to discrepancies in the applicant's evidence regarding his pre-accident occupation and his failure to provide basic information or attend the hearing, the arbitrator found that the applicant failed to discharge his burden of proof.

The claims for income replacement benefits, a special award, and interest were dismissed.

The applicant was ordered to pay the insurer's expenses fixed at $1,000.