Canadian HR Reporter, 2020
katchewan Court of Queen's Bench.
The court noted that The Workers' Compen-
sation Act, 2013 includes PTSD in its defini-
tion of "psychological injury" and, if a worker
is diagnosed with a psychological injury by a
psychiatrist or psychologist, it's presumed to
be an injury that arose out of and in the course
of employment unless proven otherwise.
However, the court found that the tribu-
nal's rejection of the claim seemed to disre-
gard the presumption outlined in the act and
the diagnosis of the worker's condition by
two different psychiatrists.
"The evidence unequivocally established
the diagnosis of the [worker's] PTSD, a diag-
nosis made by a psychiatrist and confirmed
by two psychologists, one of whom acted on
the [WCB's] request," said the court. "As these
professionals possessed the necessary quali-
fications required by… the act, the only rea-
sonable interpretation of that provision was
that the tribunal had to accept the diagnosis
at face value."
The court noted that, based on the act's
provisions, the EPS had to prove the worker's
condition was not work related, but the EPS
didn't provide any comparable psychological
evidence.
The court found that the tribunal focused
on the WCB consultant's comments regard-
ing the triggering of the worker's symptoms
and the musing that the claim may not have
been filed without the discussion with his su-
pervisor to determine that it was more likely
that the worker's psychological injury was
caused by the incident. However, the tribunal
misunderstood that this didn't necessarily
mean the worker didn't already have PTSD
that was work related, said the court, adding
that the WCB consultant made his evaluation
without seeing the worker.
"The tribunal's comments reflect a misun-
derstanding of the nature and significance
of the diagnostic evidence it received," said
the court. "In particular, the tribunal failed to
distinguish between events that 'cause' a psy-
chological condition and from those which
'trigger' it."
The court overturned the tribunal's deci-
sion — which it described as not demon-
strating "an internally coherent and rational
chain of analysis that is justified in relation to
evidence it received — and remitted the EPS
appeal back to the tribunal for reconsidera-
tion, noting that this re-established the work-
er's entitlement to benefits until such time
that the tribunal may find otherwise.
For more information, see:
• Pierson v. Estevan Board of Police Commis-
sioners, 2020 SKQB 144 (Sask. Q.B.).
September
23,
2020
|
Canadian
Employment
Law
Today
CREDIT:
TILLSONBURG
iSTOCK
The board's psychological
consultant thought that
'without labour relations
issues, the psychological
trauma is not likely to be
present.'
