Articles & News

Introduction

It is evident that the Licensing Appeal Tribunal (“LAT”) decisions place a high onus on the claimant to prove that the injuries take him/her outside of the Minor Injury Guidelines (“MIG”). Bald assertions that a claimant suffers from “chronic pain” does not resonate with an Adjudicator unless there is solid evidence to support such a conclusion. The dispute over whether a claimant (1)suffers from chronic pain and (2) whether chronic pain in itself is a condition that takes a claim outside of the MIG is subject to much litigation. The challenges associated with assessing the legitimacy and legal consequences of a diagnosis of chronic pain is not surprising given that the nature of chronic pain is highly subjective and difficult to authenticate. Whereas nearly all of the decisions for the first 1.5 years of the LAT’sinauguration were detrimental to claimants we can see that the trend is now changing.

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