A two-day filing delay nearly sank an accident benefits claim - but Ontario's tribunal handed the claimant a lifeline over Security National's objection.
On June 14, 2022, the claimant was stopped at a red light when a third-party vehicle rear-ended her. She sought statutory accident benefits from Security National Insurance Company, claiming permanent physical, neurological and psychological injuries, and began receiving income replacement benefits on October 11, 2022.
On September 13, 2023, the insurer advised her the IRB would stop, citing a section 44 insurer examination report that assessed her ongoing entitlement. That denial started the two-year limitation clock under section 56 of the Schedule.
The claimant filed an initial application with the Licence Appeal Tribunal in November 2023, then withdrew it in May 2024. She served her current application on Security National by fax on September 10, 2025. The insurer accepted the fax service but disputed her assertion that she had also filed the application with the Tribunal by regular mail that same day.
Security National argued the application reached the Tribunal only later, beyond the limitation period, and that a valid application requires both service and filing - not service alone. Vice-Chair Trina Morissette agreed that "submissions are not evidence," finding a letter dated September 10 did not, on its own, prove the filing date.
Tribunal records showed the mailed envelope's postmark had been inadvertently omitted from the scanned copy, and that the application was received on October 17, 2025. Applying the deemed-receipt rule for regular mail and giving the claimant the benefit of the doubt that she mailed it on September 10, Morissette found the application was deemed received on September 17, 2025 - two days after the limitation period expired on September 15, 2025.
Rather than bar the claim, the Vice-Chair exercised her discretion under section 7 of the Licence Appeal Tribunal Act to extend the limitation period. She applied the Divisional Court's holistic four-factor test from Manuel, weighing a bona fide intention to proceed, the length of the delay, the prejudice to the other party, and the merits.
Morissette found the delay - whether two days or the five weeks between mailing and receipt - was not significant, and rejected the insurer's argument that it would be prejudiced in locating and producing experts and evidence. Concluding that three of the four factors favoured the claimant, she extended the limitation period and allowed the IRB claim to proceed.
The claimant separately withdrew her attendant care benefits claim, and her catastrophic impairment determination was never subject to the preliminary issue.
The decision leaves the substantive dispute for the four-day hearing beginning August 31, 2026, where the onus remains on the claimant to prove her IRB entitlement. For insurers, it is a reminder that a limitation defence resting on a filing-date technicality can give way where a tribunal finds the delay minor and the prejudice slight.
