What happened: An Ontario tribunal ruled a driver's 2021 crash injuries were minor, despite a later chronic pain diagnosis.
Who's involved: Definity Insurance Company, which denied benefits, and a driver hurt in a January 2021 collision.
What's at stake: Two chiropractic plans worth $3,861.01 and $3,001.72, on top of a $3,500 minor injury limit already used up.
Why it matters: The tribunal looked past the diagnosis to doctor visits, work history and day-to-day function.
Where it stands: Decided September 25, 2026; the application was dismissed.
Every airbag in his car went off when a vehicle ran a red light and T-boned him mid-left turn. Three years later, the tribunal found, he went all of 2024 without once seeing his family doctor.
That gap helped keep the driver inside Ontario's Minor Injury Guideline. In a decision released September 25, 2026, the Licence Appeal Tribunal ruled his injuries were minor and sided with Definity Insurance Company, which had refused to pay for more treatment.
The guideline, the MIG for short, caps medical and rehabilitation benefits at $3,500 when someone's injuries are mostly sprains, strains, whiplash and similar soft tissue damage. Both sides agreed that money was already spent. The driver wanted out so he could claim two chiropractic plans from 2021, worth $3,861.01 and $3,001.72.
Police and paramedics came to the January 13, 2021, crash, but he wasn't taken to hospital by ambulance. He went to a Brampton hospital on his own that day, with pain in his neck, right shoulder and arms, plus headaches. He left with a prescription for a topical pain reliever.
By April 2021 he was back at work, according to the decision. He later found a new job and was still working when the case was decided.
Definity's view was that he had soft tissue injuries that barely affected his day-to-day function. A general physician's report the insurer relied on, dated January 15, 2025, found the injuries were "sprains and strains only without evidence of significant neurological orthopedic complications."
The driver's case rested on chronic pain. His family doctor diagnosed it on February 18, 2025, more than four years after the crash, and sent him to a pain clinic. There, he had a nerve block injection that March.
Definity said a diagnosis alone isn't enough. The tribunal's focus was function: was the pain bad enough to get in the way of his daily routine, social life, hobbies or work?
To check, it used a yardstick from the American Medical Association's impairment guides, which list six signs of chronic pain. Three are needed. The guides aren't part of Ontario's accident benefits rules, but the tribunal said it has consistently found them useful.
The driver said he met four. The tribunal found he met one.
That one was anxiety. His family doctor's notes recorded that he "gets anxious when a fast car passes him on the road." The tribunal accepted the anxiety started after the crash, but said it wasn't constant or severe, and he was still driving.
Two years of physio, two to three times a week, didn't count as leaning too heavily on health care providers. The tribunal saw it as routine treatment in the early recovery period. After that, his family doctor visits thinned out to one in 2022, one in 2023, none in 2024 and one in 2025.
Those one-off visits, the tribunal said, didn't point to persistent, ongoing pain from the accident.
Then came a single line in a pain clinic doctor's notes from March 2025. It read: "Hasn't played basketball and soccer for years."
His side asked that one note to do double duty: proof he'd pulled back from recreation and social life, and proof his body could no longer keep up with his hobbies. The tribunal wasn't persuaded.
One note, it said, wasn't enough to show he'd withdrawn from every part of his social life. It also noted he'd returned to work and was still working.
Because he stayed in the MIG, the tribunal never had to weigh whether the chiropractic plans were reasonable and necessary. No benefits meant no interest. The application was dismissed.
Here, a chronic pain diagnosis that landed four years after the crash couldn't outweigh a thin trail of doctor visits and a return to work within months.
This article is based on the tribunal's decision and is not legal advice.
