By Sophie Mongeon
Here is a fine ruling on this issue, which was handed down on August 14, 2018, in the case of Anctil and Hydro-Québec TransÉnergie.
The worker came to the audioprosthetist for a fingerprint due to the broken hearing aid. In the clinic parking lot, he fell and hit his head and right shoulder. There mild traumatic brain injury and a problem with the right trapeze.
The CNESST refuses this claim, stating that there could be no relationship between his injuries and a professional deafness.
However, section 31 of the LATMP states that work accident, bruises or illness that occurs while a worker is receiving care, or an activity prescribed in the course of medical treatment may be recognized as an occupational injury.
The administrative court recalls the principles established with regard to the adoption of section 31 of the Act in 1985, to the effect that the purpose of this section was to prevent the worker from ceasing to be compensated. The objective is to remedy this breach of causality and to ensure that a worker continues to be remunerated for the indirect consequences that may result from the care provided or the rehabilitation measures put in place in the treatment of this work-related injury. By enacting section 31, the legislator wanted to ensure that there was a distinction between the initial injury and those resulting from care or failure of care.
In those circumstances, since the occupational illness of deafness had been recognized, if the worker had not come to the clinic for that sickness, he probably wouldn’t have fallen in the clinic parking lot. The Courtroom therefore finds that the worker was entitled to an income replacement benefits.