Don Good

The appellant farmer appealed a decision by Agricorp regarding his crop insurance claims for Red Spring Wheat and Soybeans following a season with excessive rainfall and severe weed conditions.

Agricorp had offered a reduced payout for the wheat based on comparative yields and denied the soybean claim entirely due to crop abandonment and destruction of evidence.

The Tribunal found that while excessive rainfall was an insurable peril, the appellant's losses were largely due to uninsurable factors including poor farm management and weed pressure.

The Tribunal upheld Agricorp's calculation for the wheat loss and dismissed the soybean claim.

Agricorp brought a motion to dismiss an appeal by the insured regarding a 1993 corn crop insurance claim on the basis that the appeal was filed outside the statutory time limit.

The insured argued that they were misled by Agricorp into believing they had no contract of insurance, leading them to pursue a premium refund instead of appealing the denial of benefits.

The Tribunal found that the appeal was filed well beyond the one-year statutory time limit from the filing of the proof of loss, and that the Tribunal has no authority to extend this time limit.

The motion was granted and the appeal was dismissed.

The appellants, operators of a dairy farm, appealed decisions of the Director of Regulatory Compliance of the Dairy Farmers of Ontario not to cancel freezing point test results and resulting penalties from February, March, and April 1998.

The appellants did not dispute the test results but sought relief on humanitarian grounds, arguing the violations were related to the January 1998 ice storm.

The Tribunal found no cause-effect link between the ice storm and the freezing point violations, concluding instead that the issues stemmed from farm management practices that were only corrected after milk pick-up was shut off.

The appeal was denied and the penalties were allowed to stand.