The Licence Appeal Tribunal has dismissed a claimant's request to reconsider a decision favouring Aviva General Insurance Company, finding that a tribunal error in describing a disputed treatment plan did not affect the outcome of the case.
Reconsideration requests before the Tribunal face a high threshold. A party must show the Tribunal acted outside its jurisdiction, breached procedural fairness, made an error that would likely have changed the result, or has new evidence that could not have been obtained earlier and would likely have affected the result. The process is not an opportunity to relitigate a position or dispute how evidence was weighed.
The dispute traces back to an accident on October 17, 2017. The claimant sought benefits under Ontario's Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule, including a treatment plan for a psychiatric assessment. In a decision released May 13, 2026, the Tribunal found the claimant was not entitled to the plan, nor to an award or interest.
Reconsideration was requested June 3, 2026, arguing the Tribunal had mislabelled the disputed plan as a psychological assessment when the intake form specified a psychiatric assessment. Vice-Chair Craig Mazerolle agreed the Tribunal had erred on this point, since psychiatrists and psychologists have different scopes of practice. But he found the mistake would not likely have changed the result.
Mazerolle noted the Tribunal's original reasoning had rested on other factors, including the roughly five-and-a-half-year gap between the accident and the request, and "the lack of corroborating evidence supporting the possibility of a new psychological injury." He found those concerns would have persisted regardless of how the plan was labelled.
A reasonable apprehension of bias was also alleged, spanning a dozen separate grounds, including how the Tribunal treated pre-existing conditions, an expert's evidence, and settlement-related submissions. Mazerolle rejected each one, writing that most amounted to disagreement with how the evidence was weighed rather than evidence of unfairness. He added that several of the issues raised involved sections of the decision that only summarized the respondent's position and played no role in the actual analysis.
The Tribunal's reasons were also challenged as inadequate. Mazerolle disagreed, pointing to its review of clinical records from the claimant's family physician, which included an explanation for why that evidence didn't support entitlement.
Mazerolle dismissed the reconsideration request in full, finding the claimant had not met the high threshold required under Rule 18.2 of the Licence Appeal Tribunal Rules, 2023. The decision was released September 3, 2026.
