Charter Litigation

Martin v. Nova Scotia (Workers' Compensation Board)

In Martin v. Nova Scotia Workers' Compensation Board, the Supreme Court of Canada unanimously held that the Nova Scotia Workers' Compensation Act and regulations violate the equality provisions of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by excluding workers who suffer from chronic pain from claiming regular workers compensation benefits.

The Nova Scotia Workers' Compensation Board denied regular benefits to two workers who were disabled by chronic pain caused by work-related injuries. The disabled workers appealed to the Workers' Compensation Appeals Tribunal (WCAT), arguing that the Act and regulations breached their equality rights under section 15 of the Charter. The Workers' Compensation Board opposed the appeal, arguing that the provisions of the Act and regulations did not violate the Charter. Moreover, the Board argued that the WCAT did not even have the jurisdiction to apply the Charter.

The WCAT found in favour of the workers, holding that it had jurisdiction to apply the Charter and that the Act and regulations discriminated against workers disabled by chronic pain and could not be justified. However, the Board appealed the case, and the Nova Scotia Court of Appeal allowed the appeal. The Court of Appeal held that the WCAT did not have jurisdiction to consider or apply the Charter when it interpreted the Act and that, in any event, the exclusion of chronic pain from the purview of the regular workers' compensation system did not violate the equality provisions of the Charter.

The disabled workers appealed to the Supreme Court of Canada and, on October 3, 2003, the Supreme Court overturned the Court of Appeal's decision. It held that the WCAT and other administrative tribunals empowered to decide questions of law arising under a legislative provision presumptively have jurisdiction to decide the constitutional validity of those provisions. In reaching this conclusion, the Court held that:

...Canadians should be entitled to assert the rights and freedoms that the Constitution guarantees them in the most accessible forum available, without the need for parallel proceedings before the Courts... As McLachlin J... stated [in a previous case]: "The Charter is not some holy grail which only judicial initiates of the superior courts may touch. The Charter belongs to the people. All law and law-makers that touch the people must conform to it. Tribunals and commissions charged with deciding legal issues are no exception. Many more citizens have their rights determined by these tribunals than by the courts. If the Charter is to be meaningful to ordinary people, then it must find its expression in the decisions of these tribunals."

On the merits of the case, the Court held that, in excluding chronic pain from the application of the general compensation provisions and limiting workers disabled by chronic pain to temporary, short-term benefits, the Act and regulations discriminated against workers disabled by chronic pain. The Court stated:

...[T]he chronic pain regime under the Act not only removes the appellants' ability to seek compensation in civil actions, but also excludes chronic pain sufferers from the protection available to other injured workers. It also ignores the real needs of workers who are permanently disabled by chronic pain by denying them any long-term benefits and by excluding them from the duty imposed upon employers to take back and accommodate injured workers. The Act thus sends a clear message that chronic pain sufferers are not equally valued and deserving of respect as members of Canadian society.

Finally, the Court held that the discrimination could not be upheld under section 1 of the Charter as a reasonable limit prescribed by law that is demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society, and declared that the impugned section of the Act and regulations were of no force and effect. However, the Court granted a request that the remedy be suspended for six months so that the limited benefits of the current program would be preserved until the government of Nova Scotia amended the Act and regulations to bring them in line with the requirements of the Charter.

The Canadian Labour Congress intervened in the chronic pain case in support of the appellants. The CLC was represented by Steven Barrett and Ethan Poskanzer.

Click here to read the Court's decision