Chase Papak v. Registrar of Motor Vehicles, 2025 CanLII 61184

Papak v. Registrar of Motor Vehicles, 2025 LAT 16820/MED-R

RECONSIDERATION DECISION

Before: Craig Mazerolle, Vice-Chair

Licence Appeal Tribunal File Number: 16820/MED-R

Case Name: Chase Papak v. Registrar of Motor Vehicles

Written Submissions by:

For the Appellant: Chase Papak, Appellant

For the Respondent: Melissa Litrenta, Agent

OVERVIEW

1The appellant filed a request for reconsideration form and supporting submissions on May 5, 2025 in respect of the Tribunal’s decision released on May 1, 2025 (“decision”).

2Following a hearing before a panel of two adjudicators on April 11, 2025, the Tribunal confirmed the Registrar’s decision to suspend the appellant’s driver’s licence, pursuant to s. 50(2) of the Highway Traffic Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8. Specifically, they found, at paragraph 24 of the decision, that his alcohol use disorder “is likely to significantly interfere with his ability to drive safely.”

3The appellant did not attend the hearing.

4The grounds for a request for reconsideration are found in Rule 18.2 of the Licence Appeal Tribunal Rules, 2023 (“Rules”). To grant a request for reconsideration, the Tribunal must be satisfied that one or more of the following criteria are met:

a) The Tribunal acted outside its jurisdiction or committed a material breach of procedural fairness;

b) The Tribunal made an error of law or fact such that the Tribunal would likely have reached a different result had the error not been made; or

c) There is evidence that was not before the Tribunal when rendering its decision, could not have been obtained previously by the party now seeking to introduce it, and would likely have affected the result.

5The appellant is relying on Rule 18.2(a) and Rule 18.2(b) to support his request for reconsideration. There is no explicit request for relief being made by the appellant, but I can infer that he is seeking to overturn the decision.

6The respondent is asking for the request for reconsideration to be dismissed.

7I note that the appellant filed a Notice of Motion on June 15, 2025 seeking to expedite the release of this decision. As the decision has now been released, I find this Notice of Motion is moot.

RESULT

8The appellant’s request for reconsideration is dismissed.

ANALYSIS

9I find the appellant has not established any grounds for reconsideration pursuant to either Rule 18.2(a) or Rule 18.2(b).

10The main crux of the appellant’s request focuses on the adjudicators’ reasoning regarding two Medical Condition Reports, dated December 27 and December 30, 2024. According to the appellant, while the adjudicators disregarded the December 30, 2024 report due to a missing, mandatory signature, they did not reach the same conclusion about the missing information from the December 27, 2024 report. Specifically, the December 27, 2024 report is missing the practitioner’s street address, a section of the report that is marked as “mandatory”.

11The appellant claims that the adjudicators cannot determine what is and is not mandatory on these forms, as the “sole purpose” of Tribunals Ontario is to “provide ‘fair and impartial’ decisions based on the ‘rules and procedures within its jurisdiction’.” As such, the appellant contends that this part of the decision constitutes a breach of procedural fairness, as well as an error that would have resulted in a different outcome had it not occurred.

12This position is restated in his reply, with an additional emphasis on his argument that the Tribunal’s conclusion regarding the missing, mandatory information from the December 27, 2024 report is an error, pursuant to Rule 18.2(b): “The error made in this specific instance was that a clearly stated rule (acknowledged by the LAT) which was not satisfied (acknowledged by the LAT) was not enforced.”

13The adjudicators addressed the missing street address from the December 27, 2024 Medical Condition Report at paragraph 16 of the decision:

In his Notice of Appeal, the appellant takes issue with the fact that the practitioner’s street address was not included on the [Medical Condition Report], despite an asterisk indicating that information is mandatory. He argues that this document should be disregarded on that basis. We have considered this concern, notwithstanding that the appellant did not attend the hearing or make submissions on it, but we disagree. The only missing information in the form was the street address of Windsor Regional Hospital. We note that “WRH-OC-ER” was written on the address line to indicate the location of the physician who completed the form. The relevant portion of the form, which pertained to the appellant’s medical condition, was completed, and the form was verified via signature. We are not persuaded that the missing street address invalidates the rest of the information of the form. We are therefore not prepared to disregard or assign less weight to this document simply because it was missing the street address of the hospital.

14The adjudicators then addressed the missing signature from the December 30, 2024 Medical Condition Report at paragraph 17 of the decision:

A second unsolicited [Medical Condition Report] dated December 30, 2024, completed by nurse practitioner Karl Sweet, also indicates that the appellant has or appears to have a diagnosis of substance use disorder, specifically alcohol. However, there is no signature on the document. The appellant also stated in his Notice of Appeal that this document should be disregarded as it did not include Mr. Sweet’s signature. During the hearing, the Registrar acknowledged that if no signature is present on [a Medical Condition Report], typically the Ministry of Transportation (“MOT”) will reach out to the practitioner to verify the document. However, it did not do so in this case. As it appears that this document was not verified by a signature, and the MOT took no steps to ensure that it was verified, we are not prepared to assign weight to it in this hearing.

15The test for reconsideration under Rule 18.2 involves a high threshold. The reconsideration process is not an opportunity for a party to re-litigate its position where it disagrees with the Tribunal’s decision, or with the weight assigned to the evidence. The requestor must show how or why the decision falls into one of the categories in Rule 18.2. With this framework in mind, I find the appellant has not demonstrated how the criteria under either Rule 18.2(a) or Rule 18.2(b) has been engaged.

16As the above quotations demonstrate, the adjudicators turned their minds to the relevant question before them, i.e., whether the evidence established that the appellant suffers from a condition or disability likely to significantly interfere with his ability to drive a motor vehicle safely. Part of this analysis involved weighing the evidence at hand, namely, the Medical Condition Reports. At both paragraphs 16 and 17 of the decision, the adjudicators considered the arguments presented by the appellant about the missing information from these reports, and they then assigned weight to these reports accordingly.

17The appellant has not directed me to any legal authorities stating that the analysis conducted by the adjudicators was legally incorrect, nor has he shown how this analysis constitutes a factual error. Instead, the appellant appears to be requesting a reweighing of the evidence and a reassessment of the arguments made at first instance. Both requests are not proper uses of the reconsideration process.

18I also note that the appellant’s arguments about these Medical Condition Reports appear to have been considered by the adjudicators, despite his absence from the hearing. As such, I further find that the appellant has not shown how the Tribunal’s handling of his file constitutes a material breach of procedural fairness. Instead, it appears the adjudicators made specific efforts to ensure that the appellant’s position was assessed in this proceeding.

19Taken together, I find the appellant has not established any grounds for reconsideration pursuant to either Rule 18.2(a) or Rule 18.2(b). As such, his request for reconsideration is dismissed.

CONCLUSION & ORDER

20The appellant’s request for reconsideration is dismissed.

21The appellant’s Notice of Motion (filed June 15, 2025) is dismissed as moot.

Craig Mazerolle

Vice-Chair

Tribunals Ontario – Licence Appeal Tribunal