Judicial Review of Veterans Review and Appeal Board Decision

On January 18, 2019, the Federal Court of Canada set aside a decision of the Veterans Review and Appeal Board (VRAB) to deny the disability claim made by our client, Gary Crummey.

In their decision, the VRAB made the determination that Mr. Crummey was unable to show a sufficient link between his spinal compression fracture and service related injuries he sustained while on two tours of duty in Israel and Egypt to warrant the award of a disability benefit. Mr. Crummey offered proof of that link by way of two medical opinions. Under the VRAB Act, a Panel must accept uncontradicted and credible medical opinions. However, the Panel dismissed both opinions as not credible. We argued that the Panel’s findings on credibility were not reasonable as they did not provide sufficient reasons to support their conclusions. The Honourable Justice Southcott agreed with our arguments. Within two days of the hearing he issued a written decision ordering that, since the Panel’s findings regarding credibility for Dr. Smith were unreasonable, the entire decision was unreasonable and returned to a reconstituted Panel for reconsideration.

View the full decision here.