The plaintiff sought a determination before trial on whether s. 2 of O. Reg. 347/13, which limits attendant care benefits provided by family members to the amount of their economic loss, applied where the motor vehicle accident occurred before the regulation came into force but the claim for attendant care was made afterward.
The court considered the evolution of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule and the Court of Appeal’s interpretation in Henry v. Gore Mutual Insurance Co. The court held the regulation constituted a substantive change to the law rather than a clarification and interfered with vested contractual rights under the insurance policy.
Because the regulation was silent on temporal application and no clear legislative intent to apply it retrospectively was demonstrated, the presumption against retrospectivity applied.
The amendment therefore did not apply to accidents occurring before February 1, 2014.
