The claimant appealed the Tribunal’s decision that he was entitled to only $2,600 in IRBs, and that he was not entitled to a special award. His grounds of appeal were based on allegations of unfairness. First, he argued that the Tribunal’s reconsideration process was procedurally unfair because it permitted the adjudicator hearing the matter at first instance to also hear and decide the reconsideration. Second, he argued that the Tribunal’s error in assigning an adjudicator to decide a motion who had not heard the oral submissions rendered the whole matter unfair, despite the Tribunal cancelling that decision and re-assigning the correct adjudicator. The Court dismissed the appeal. The Court held that the Tribunal’s rules permitting the same adjudicator that heard the matter initially to conduct the reconsideration did not violate any principles of procedural fairness. Second, the Court held that the Tribunal corrected any breach of procedural fairness in re-assigning the correct adjudicator to decide a motion and cancelling the earlier decision. The Court also rejected an argument that the Tribunal was institutionally biased, which the claimant argued based on statistics showing that the Tribunal finds in favour of insurers more often than applicants.
