The claimant appealed the Tribunal’s decision that she did not suffer a catastrophic impairment under the Spinal Cord Independence Measure III (“SCIM”), also known as Criteria 2(iii). The Court upheld the Tribunal’s decision, concluding that Adjudicator Boyce was correct in law to dismiss the catastrophic impairment application because the claimant did not suffer a permanent alteration of function in her leg. The Court agreed that a temporary alteration in leg function did not satisfy the section 2(iii) catastrophic impairment definition. The Court also noted that the Tribunal’s decision was based on an agreed statement of fact that the claimant’s SCIM score had improved above 5, which necessarily implied that the claimant’s leg impairment (measured 10 months earlier as a 4 under the SCIM) was not permanent.
