Peter Swanson Succeeds in the Court of Appeal Upholding a Determination that a Worksafe BC Order was Unreasonable
The Court of Appeal for British Columbia in the case of British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority v. Workers’ Compensation Board of British Columbia, 2014 BCCA 353 upheld the lower Court’s determination that a Worksafe BC order against BC Hydro should be quashed. Peter Swanson was counsel for BC Hydro at both levels of Court. The case turned on the scope of the accident reporting obligation set out in s. 172 (1)(a) of the Workers Compensation Act, and whether BC Hydro had an obligation to report a serious injury to another company’s employee when BC Hydro employees became of aware of the accident during the rescue of the injured worker. The Worksafe BC order was critical of BC Hydro for not immediately reporting the accident. The lower Court, and the Court of Appeal, both agreed that the Worksafe BC order was legally indefensible and unjustifiable and thus unreasonable. The case can be viewed at: http://www.canlii.org/en/bc/bcca/doc/2014/2014bcca353/2014bcca353.html
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