Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Status of the appellant as an “insured person” under s. 3(1) of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule (SABS) and whether she was principally dependent on the named insured or her spouse for financial support or care.
• Scope of the Licence Appeal Tribunal’s discretion to proceed by written hearing only, and whether denying an oral/viva voce hearing amounted to a material breach of procedural fairness.
• Application of the “big picture” dependency test from Miller, Allstate and related cases, including the interaction between qualitative family support and the quantitative “50% + 1” financial threshold.
• Weight and treatment of examination-under-oath transcripts and banking records as evidence of dependency, including inconsistencies between documentary figures and testimony.
• Appellate and judicial review standards (correctness and reasonableness) applied to the LAT’s decision and reconsideration decision, and whether the appellant was attempting to re-litigate factual findings rather than identify true legal error.
• Determination of costs consequences following dismissal of the appeal and judicial review, including the award of a fixed cost amount in favour of the insurer as the successful party.

Facts of the case
The case arises from a motor vehicle accident on August 2, 2021, involving the appellant’s son, who did not have his own automobile insurance at the time of the collision. Seeking statutory accident benefits, the appellant and her son turned to a policy issued by Security National Insurance Company (SNIC) to Sireen Rahhal, who was the spouse of the appellant’s brother and the named insured under the policy. The appellant and her son did not reside with the named insured, nor were they listed as drivers on the policy. Their claim therefore depended on whether they could be treated as “insured persons” under the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule – Effective September 1, 2010, O. Reg. 34/10 (SABS), through a dependency relationship with the named insured or her spouse.

Policy terms and definition of insured person
Section 3(1)(a) of the SABS defines an “insured person,” in relation to a particular motor vehicle liability policy, to include the named insured, specified drivers on the policy, and, where the named insured is an individual, the named insured’s spouse and any dependant of the named insured or of that spouse. In this case, the only route for the appellant to qualify was as a “dependant” of either the named insured or her spouse. Since she was not a listed driver and did not live with the named insured, the core legal and factual inquiry centered on whether she was “principally dependent” for financial support or care. The parties agreed that the established dependency framework from Miller v. Safeco Insurance Co. of America and State Farm v. Bunyan applied, as refined by Allstate Insurance v. ING Insurance. Those authorities confirm that a person is not just required to be unable to meet more than 50% of their own needs, but that another person must also be providing more for the person than the person provides for themselves. This generates both a quantitative, “50% + 1” analysis of financial flows, and a broader, contextual “big picture” assessment of the entire dependency relationship.

Proceedings before the Licence Appeal Tribunal
The issue of whether the appellant met the definition of “insured person” was determined at a preliminary issues hearing before the Licence Appeal Tribunal (LAT), held in writing rather than by oral evidence. The parties agreed there would be no affidavits, and the key evidence became transcripts from Examinations Under Oath (EUOs) taken earlier in a separate priorities dispute regarding coverage for the appellant’s son. Those examinations involved the appellant, the named insured, and the named insured’s spouse. The appellant sought to use the EUO transcripts to establish dependency. SNIC attempted to exclude that material, arguing it was improper sur-reply, protected by the deemed undertaking rule, served late, and prejudicial because SNIC could not re-examine the witnesses on their testimony in that context. The LAT rejected these objections and admitted the EUO transcripts for consideration on the dependency issue, ultimately finding that this approach favoured the appellant by broadening the evidentiary record in her support.

Evidence on financial dependency and family support
On the evidence, the LAT accepted that there was a close-knit extended family relationship. The appellant helped care for the named insured’s three children while the named insured worked, the named insured and her spouse gave the appellant financial help toward her lease and incidental expenses for her children, and the named insured’s spouse provided ongoing support and guidance in a father-figure role for the appellant’s children. Despite these non-financial and informal support elements, the LAT concluded they did not amount to the appellant being principally dependent on the named insured or her spouse when one adopted the “big picture” approach to dependency. The LAT then undertook a mathematical assessment using banking records. It found that the appellant received an average of approximately $4,153.43 per month from government assistance, while her monthly expenses in the 12 months before the accident were about $5,475.31. Even if one accepted her argument that lease payments not reflected in her banking records should be added—taking monthly expenses to about $8,025.31—this figure conflicted with her own EUO evidence that her average monthly expenses were about $5,500. The named insured and her spouse testified that they gave the appellant between $1,500 and $2,000 per month, plus a few hundred dollars in groceries and incidental support for the children. When all figures were compared, the LAT concluded that the appellant’s government benefits alone exceeded the “50% + 1” threshold of her expenses, and that most of her financial needs were not being met by the named insured or her spouse. It therefore found that she was not principally dependent on them for financial support or care and, as a result, was not an “insured person” under the SABS for purposes of claiming statutory accident benefits under the SNIC policy.

Appellant’s challenge on procedural fairness and legal error
The appellant challenged both the LAT’s preliminary decision and the later reconsideration decision. On procedural fairness, she argued that the LAT committed a material breach by refusing her an oral hearing on the key dependency issue, which she said was central to her status as an insured person. She contended that the reliance on written submissions, in a case involving credibility and nuanced family dynamics, was unfair and inadequate. She also objected that the LAT’s analysis of dependency was too narrow and overly focused on limited documentary evidence, especially banking and formal financial transfers, at the expense of the broader personal history and lived reality of the dependency relationship. On the merits, the appellant maintained that the LAT misapplied the Miller and Allstate framework by effectively treating the “50% + 1” test as a rigid, mathematical rule rather than a component of a holistic “big picture” inquiry. She said the Tribunal failed to give sufficient weight to her EUO testimony, which she claimed showed principal financial reliance on the named insured, and did not properly account for informal or undocumented support such as cash contributions, child care, and non-monetary assistance. Finally, she submitted that the reasons were insufficient, particularly because the decision had significant consequences for her rights and access to benefits.

Standard of review in the Divisional Court
On appeal and judicial review to the Divisional Court, the legal framework was governed by the Licence Appeal Tribunal Act and the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Vavilov. Under the Tribunal’s home statute, an appeal to the Divisional Court lies only on questions of law in matters under the Insurance Act, which attracts the appellate standard of correctness. For the accompanying application for judicial review, the general standard is reasonableness, focusing on whether the Tribunal’s decision, including its justification, falls within a range of acceptable outcomes and is supported by intelligible reasoning, rather than on whether the reviewing court would have reached the same conclusion. The appellant argued that, taken together, the procedural choices and the dependency analysis rendered the decision either legally incorrect or unreasonable, warranting both appellate intervention and judicial review.

Divisional Court’s reasoning on fairness and dependency analysis
The Divisional Court rejected the procedural fairness complaint. It emphasised that the LAT is entitled to control its own process under the Statutory Powers Procedure Act and its own Rules, which explicitly allow written hearings and are to be interpreted liberally. The court observed that the preliminary issue was in fact conducted on a written record to which both parties contributed, that the parties had agreed not to file affidavits, and that the LAT had admitted and considered the EUO transcripts, despite SNIC’s objections. In these circumstances, the court saw no unfairness in proceeding without oral evidence and deferred to the LAT’s procedural choices as lying within the bounds of fairness. On the alleged legal errors, the Divisional Court held that the LAT had correctly identified and applied the governing principles from Miller, State Farm v. Bunyan, and Allstate. It noted that the Tribunal explicitly acknowledged both the “big picture” nature of the dependency inquiry and the need to assess whether another person was actually providing more support than the appellant provided for herself. The court pointed to the LAT’s express discussion of the close family relationship and non-financial support, and its conclusion that, even taking that relationship into account, the evidence did not establish principal dependency. The mathematical analysis of income and expenses, drawn from the appellant’s banking records and testimony, was treated as part of a comprehensive assessment rather than as a stand-alone or rigid formula. The Divisional Court found that the appellant had not demonstrated any legal error or unreasonableness in how the Tribunal weighed that evidence or reconciled inconsistencies between stated expenses and bank records. It characterised the appellant’s arguments as an attempt to re-litigate the fact-finding and re-argue the merits, rather than identify a true question of law. The court likewise upheld the LAT’s reconsideration decision, concluding that the high threshold for reconsideration had not been met.

Outcome and financial consequences
In the result, the Divisional Court dismissed both the statutory appeal and the application for judicial review. It thereby left intact the LAT’s ruling that the appellant was not an “insured person” under s. 3(1) of the SABS and was not entitled to statutory accident benefits under the SNIC policy. This meant that no accident benefits or damages were ordered in her favour. On costs, the court ordered the appellant to pay $2,500 to Security National Insurance Company, in accordance with an agreement between counsel. As a result, the successful party in the overall litigation was Security National Insurance Company, and the total monetary amount ordered in its favour was $2,500 in costs; no additional damages or benefit payments were awarded to the appellant.