And yet there are people on this thread defending that course of action?
Remind me not to ask any of the defenders for referrals for dental work.

Honda stated outright that two doctors said Keays was fit for work. Only one had suggested RTW. That makes the statement half-truth at best.

Oddly, no-one’s paying attention to the half-lie, so it seems. Arriving at this late date, it looks to me as though Honda didn’t like the second opinion, and so went shopping for a third, then wallpapered the actual meaning of the doctors’ reports to look like a solid argument for screwing over one of its workers.

This tactic of talking up the value of therapeutic value of work while relegating the disability/pain to the background is not unusual.

Here is what a FSCO arbitrator had to say on this very topic:

This leads to a fundamental concern regarding the AssessMed reports. In determining IRB entitlement, arbitrators look at function. In significant measure, especially in cases involving soft-tissue injury, the key questions are whether the applicant is in pain, how much pain is the applicant in, and how much pain is too much pain. AssessMed sets out in its report a statement of its philosophy, which includes:

that a safe and timely return to work will benefit injured or ill individuals and their families by enhancing recovery and reducing disability.

This may be a laudable statement were it not that AssessMed appears to consider pain to be largely irrelevant.

(FSCO A03-000056)

Keays v. Honda Canada Inc., 2005 CanLII 8730 (ON S.C.) — 2005-03-17

[4] Mr. Keay’s health situation deteriorated to the extent that he was off on disability from October 1996 until December 1998. The insurer had originally denied coverage because his claim could not be supported by “objective medical evidence”. After a period on Short Term Disability benefits (“STD”) he was approved for Long Term Disability benefits (“LTD”) in November 1997 and these were terminated as of December 1998 following a Work Capacity Evaluation (“WCE”) conducted by Assess Med on behalf of London Life. The plaintiff has described this process as a “farce”. No evidence has been led to contradict this position. Accordingly, I find that he was wrongly terminated from his LTD. His attempt to appeal this determination using the advocacy of his physician, Dr. Morris who proposed the diagnosis of CFS, was summarily dismissed by the insurer.

[12] In the meantime, due to the frustration and stress that was being generated by the “stone-walling” on the part of the Honda management hierarchy, Mr. Keays decided to retain legal counsel to attempt to mediate his concerns. I am satisfied that he did this as a last resort because he legitimately felt that his disability would result in his termination, disqualifying him from the LTD which has been wrongly cancelled due to the “bogus” WCE conducted by Assess Med.

……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

The SCC has given employers and their group health carriers to declare open season on disabled employers. Further, the SCC has demonstrated it will look the other way and feigh blissfull ignorance while corporations use bogus third party medical assessments to bolster the biased opinions of its own doctors.

One point that I might clarify from your comments. You find the statement ” … we no longer accept that you have a disability requiring your absence from work. The Drs believe you should be attending …” to be misleading because the doctors did not challenge the diagnosis. There’s a fundamental difference, though, between a diagnosis and a disability. A doctor can talk about a diagnosis and the associated limitations; but only an employer can conclude that those limitations amount to a disability requiring absence from work. That is is a fundamental part of good disability management, and the distinction gets lost all too often.

While I share some of your concerns over the majority’s revised approach on aggravated and punitive damages, the impact of your analysis is diminished by your injudicious use of inflammatory rhetoric. Rational argument has no room for ad hominem attacks by resorting to describing Justice Bastarache’s legal reasoning as musteline.

This is particularly inappropriate given the recent Federal Court rebuke of former Justice Gomery in the Sponsorship Inquiry. As Justice Teitelbaum notes, judges should speak only through their judgments: “This is the only appropriate forum in which a decision-maker should state his or her conclusions. As my colleague, mentor and friend, the late Justice Frank Collier, once said to me when I was first appointed as a judge, ‘let the decision speak for itself.’”

Fair comment is one thing; disrespecting the judiciary is another. Your time and efforts would be better spent in developing new legal arguments for future cases.