Category Archives: Workers’ Compensation

Tribunal’s interpretation of Workers Compensation Act “fundamentally inconsistent” with the purpose of the legislation

In Bendera v. Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal, 2018 BCSC 552 the Supreme Court of British Columbia set aside a Tribunal decision denying a workers’ compensation claim for PTSD, finding that the decision was undermined by an “absurd” interpretation of the Workers Compensation Act. In 2013, the Tribunal had found that the worker’s PTSD was caused by coercive and threatening…

SCC finds in favour of workers with cancer but upholds limits on WCAT’s ability to reconsider its decisions

In British Columbia (Workers’ Compensation Appeal Tribunal) v. Fraser Health Authority, 2016 SCC 25, the Supreme Court of Canada affirmed that breast cancers experienced by a group of hospital lab workers were occupational diseases.  Overturning the decisions of the B.C. courts, the Supreme Court of Canada restored the Tribunal’s decision on causation. The Court held that the Tribunal…