Jagjeevan Deol v. Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, 2000 ONFSCDRS 140

Background

Jagjeevan Deol suffered multiple injuries as a result of the accident that caused the death of his cousins Shelley Kaur and Tajinder Singh, as well as Shelley's new husband, while the four of them were driving in India. He and his family had travelled from Brampton, Ontario to India to celebrate Shelley's wedding, which had taken place shortly before the accident. Mr. Deol spent three weeks in hospital in India recovering from his injuries, and remained there for a further four months attending hospital on an outpatient basis. He returned home to Canada in early December 1994.

Mr. Deol was 18 years old at the time of the accident.

The parties agreed that Liberty Mutual first received notice of this claim in late June 1998, and that an Application for Accident Benefits was submitted to Liberty Mutual on Mr. Deol's behalf in August 1998. Counsel for Liberty advised at the hearing that it did not take the position that Mr. Deol was required to submit an application for benefits while recuperating from his injuries in India, and acknowledged that the "clock" should not start ticking until he returned to Canada in December 1994. In light of this concession by the Insurer, the application for benefits was submitted approximately three and one-half years beyond the 30-day time limit prescribed by section 59(1) of the Schedule.

In an earlier application for arbitration arising out of the same tragic accident, I awarded Baldev Kaur, Shelley and Tajinder's mother, death benefits and funeral expenses under the Schedule despite the fact that her application was filed with a similar delay.² While some of the evidence I heard in this case overlapped with the evidence in that hearing, the focus in this case was quite different. In any event, the Schedule requires that an individualised inquiry be conducted in each case, in order to determine whether the applicant in question has a