- Reconsideration (error of law)
The WSIB requested a reconsideration of Decision No. 360/24, where the Vice-Chair had allowed the worker's appeal from a decision of the Appeals Registrar, which had denied an extension of the statutory time limit to appeal a decision of the Return to Work (RTW) Specialist.
The Chair denied the reconsideration request. The Tribunal's threshold test for granting a reconsideration request had not been met. The WSIB's submissions did not demonstrate a fundamental error or lack of coherence in the original decision.The Chair concluded that the Vice-Chair's approach to the appeal in Decision No. 360/24 was consistent with the Tribunal's prevailing case law, which recognizes that workers may not be in a position to object to WT/LMR Plans at the outset and takes this into account in time extension appeals. The WSIAT's jurisprudence has implicitly found that the time limit for objecting to a WT Plan and/or SO runs from the date that the worker is reasonably able to discover that the WT Plan and/or SO is not suitable. The Vice-Chair therefore did not make a fundamental error in following the Tribunal's prevailing jurisprudence to determine that the worker in this appeal could not have known within 30 days of the WT Plan letter that he would have practical difficulty with completing the plan as agreed upon at that time.The Chair considered the WSIB's submissions with respect to the interpretation of prejudice in the workers' compensation system. The WSIB's submissions proposed an interpretation of prejudice that goes beyond the opposing party and looks at the systemic interests in finality and the institutional prejudice that may result from granting time extensions too freely simply because prejudice is not demonstrated. The Chair found that this worker's appeal was not the appropriate case in which to litigate this issue. Decision No. 360/24 followed the Tribunal's mainstream approach to evaluating prejudice and it therefore could not be said that it contained a fundamental error in this regard. The concept of prejudice in the common law usually refers to prejudice to an opposing party, and this has been the consistent interpretation in the WSIAT's jurisprudence. It was also not apparent that consideration of this issue would have changed the outcome of the appeal in this case. Lastly, Decision No. 360/24 was clarified to correct typographical errors in which the date of the RTW Officer's decision was incorrectly cited as January 17, 2019, rather than January 27, 2019.