The claimant applied to the LAT seeking entitlement to pre-104 week income replacement benefits. The claimant had returned to work at the time of the hearing and was seeking entitlement to IRBs for the period before he returned to work. Adjudicator Boyce found that the claimant failed to demonstrate that he had a substantial inability to perform the essential tasks of his pre-accident employment. The claimant submitted insufficient evidence to support that he was terminated from his post-accident employment as a result of accident-related impairments. Although the s. 25 and s. 44 psychology assessors diagnosed the claimant with accident-related impairments, they did not opine that he was unable to perform his pre-accident employment as a result of the impairments. Adjudicator Boyce held that it was not enough for the claimant to simply believe that he could not continue to work, in order to receive an IRB. There must be more evidence of a substantial inability than the claimant’s self-reporting. Adjudicator Boyce found that at minimum the evidence should come in the form of an objective medical opinion that would support the claimant’s subjective reporting. The claimant’s OCF-3 and chronic pain report were given little weight as they were completed after the claimant had returned to work.
