An Ontario tribunal has kept a driver within Definity Insurance Company's minor injury cap after his medical evidence didn't hold up.

The Licence Appeal Tribunal found the driver, hurt in a January 2022 crash, hadn't proven his injuries went beyond what Ontario's Minor Injury Guideline, or MIG, covers. That capped his medical and rehabilitation benefits at $3,500 and left more than $13,000 in physiotherapy claims unpaid.

His car had struck another vehicle turning left in front of him at an intersection. He argued that a psychological condition and chronic pain should place him outside the MIG's limit, pointing to an assessment diagnosing an adjustment disorder with anxiety and depressed mood, plus physiotherapy records describing ongoing neck and shoulder pain. Four separate treatment plans, filed between March and August 2024, made up the money in dispute.

Vice-Chair Amanda Marshall wasn't convinced by the psychological report. She found the assessors had recorded that the driver had no prior motor vehicle accidents, when clinic records showed he'd been in collisions in 2015 and 2017. She also found the report tied his struggles with daily activities to the 2022 crash without weighing in two unrelated injuries: a workplace accident that cost him two toes in January 2024, and a foot fracture in June 2025.

Marshall pointed out that the driver's own test results didn't show unusually high depression or anxiety next to other pain patients, and that he hadn't raised psychological concerns with his family doctor until an assessment more than three and a half years after the crash.

The chronic pain argument ran into the same problem. Definity flagged inconsistencies in which shoulder the driver reported pain in to different doctors, and pointed to a physiatry assessment concluding he'd reached maximum medical recovery. Marshall agreed there was no medical evidence linking his symptoms to any real functional impairment. Records show he saw his family doctor once for accident-related pain, shortly after the crash, and that neither that doctor nor a second family physician he later saw noted further complaints tied to the collision. She found he was back to full work duties within ten weeks and stayed independent in his personal care - and that his later foot injuries gave an equally plausible explanation for whatever limitations he did report.

Because he stayed within the guideline, the tribunal didn't need to weigh in on whether the disputed treatment plans were reasonable, and found he wasn't entitled to interest. Marshall released her decision on September 4, 2026, more than four years after the crash that started the claim.