The insurer brought a preliminary motion to address whether or not the claimant was involved in an accident as defined in the Schedule. The claimant had started her car and brushed off the snow, and planned on throwing out the garbage in a nearby communal garbage bin before starting her day that morning. As she finished brushing off the snow, the claimant proceeded to throw out her garbage and slipped and fell after taking two steps from her vehicle. The claimant broke her wrist. Vice Chair Flude held that this incident was not an accident as defined in the Schedule, as it failed to meet both the purpose and causation test. Vice Chair Flude concluded that proximity is not use or operation, and that falling next to a car does not necessarily implicate the use of operation of the car in the fall. Further, he also concluded that the claimant’s intention of throwing out garbage was an intervening act which broke the chain of causation, and that the dominant feature was the slippery surface that caused her slip and fall.
