A pedestrian struck by a snowplow lost her bid for Ontario accident benefits after the tribunal ruled the Caterpillar machine was not an automobile.
The Ontario Licence Appeal Tribunal dismissed Ann Dombroskie's application against Belair Insurance Company Inc. in a decision released May 26, 2026, finding she was not involved in an "accident" as defined in section 3(1) of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule.
The dispute traced back to February 18, 2022, when Dombroskie pulled into a mini mall parking lot to circumvent a snow pile-up on the street. She parked her car, walked over to a skid steer Caterpillar plow operator to ask him to remove the snow obstructing the road, then started walking back to her vehicle. Before reaching it, she turned around and was struck by the corner of the plow's shovel. The police were called, and a Victim Report classified the incident as an assault and identified the weapon as a "motor vehicle."
Belair denied benefits, and the matter turned on whether the snowplow qualified as an "automobile" under the schedule. Adjudicator Melanie Malach applied the three-part test from Adams v. Pineland Amusement Ltd., which asks whether the vehicle is an automobile in ordinary parlance, whether it is defined as one under the insurance policy, or whether it falls within an enlarged statutory definition.
On the first branch, the adjudicator found Dombroskie had not provided sufficient evidence about the vehicle's design and function. While the applicant argued the snowplow's primary purpose was driving and mobility, Malach noted she had not produced product specifications, photographs, or details about features supporting that it was designed for ordinary vehicular traffic. The applicant's own statement described the vehicle as a yellow and black skid steer Caterpillar plow with a front shovel attachment and steel tracks, operating to clear snow from a parking lot.
The applicant had relied on Carpenter v. Intact Insurance Company, but the adjudicator noted that decision had been overturned by the Divisional Court on procedural fairness grounds, with the Divisional Court declining to substantively interpret whether a Caterpillar is an automobile.
On the second branch, the adjudicator found no evidence the skid steer Caterpillar was considered an automobile under any insurance policy, and the applicant made no submissions on this point.
The third branch examined the enlarged statutory definition. The respondent argued the vehicle was a "road-building machine" under the Highway Traffic Act and Ontario Regulation 398/16, which lists snowplows as a prescribed class. Malach agreed, finding "the skid steer Caterpillar plow squarely falls within this prescribed class." Because road-building machines are expressly excluded from the motor vehicle definition, and because the vehicle was not required to be insured under a motor vehicle liability policy, it did not fall within the enlarged definition.
With all three branches failing, the application was dismissed.
