This recent court decision set aside a private arbitrator\u2019s ruling that required the Motor Accident Claims Fund (“MVACF”) to administer the Statutory Accident Benefits (\u201cSABS\u201d) claim of a person injured in a snowmobile accident.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Occupants injured in motor vehicle accidents have access to SABS, and which insurance company pays those benefits is subject to a set of priority rules contained in the Insurance Act<\/em>.\u00a0 For injured occupants of a motor vehicle, first in priority in the insurer who issued an automobile policy in which the injured occupant is an insured (ie: typically the automobile policy purchased by the injured person).\u00a0 \u00a0Second in priority is the insurer who issued an automobile policy for the vehicle that the injured person was occupying at the time of the accident.\u00a0 Third in priority is the insurer of any vehicle \u201cinvolved in the incident\u201d<\/em> giving rise to the SABS claim.\u00a0 Fourth, and last in priority, is the Motor Vehicle Accident Claims Fund (\u201cMVACF\u201d) (ie: the insurer of last resort).<\/p>\n This case dealt with the third priority level, because the injured person had no automobile insurance of her own, and she was regrettably a passenger on an uninsured snowmobile.\u00a0 The tragedy unfolded when two brothers were operating snowmobiles at high speeds, back-to-back, when they came upon a fallen tree: they each crashed into the tree, in succession.\u00a0 The two brothers died.\u00a0 The female passenger on the lead uninsured snowmobile survived.\u00a0 The private Arbitrator was asked to determine whether the insurance company for the trailing snowmobile should pay in priority to the MVACF.\u00a0 The Arbitrator ruled that the MVACF had to administer the SABS after concluding that the second snowmobile was not \u201cinvolved\u201d in the incident.\u00a0 The arbitrator reasoned that whether the second snowmobile was present or not, the first snowmobile would have hit the tree, and catapulted the two occupants: the second trailing snowmobiler played no role in the outcome.\u00a0<\/p>\n The court disagreed, holding that being \u201cinvolved\u201d doesn\u2019t mean the other vehicle needs to be causally connected to the accident, and it was an error by the arbitrator to go through a causation analysis.\u00a0 The court held that for the purpose of the priority rules, the term \u201cinvolved\u201d simply means that the two vehicles had some connection: in this case, the connection being that they set out that day to go trailing, at high speeds, and were egging each other on.\u00a0 \u00a0Even though the second snowmobile did not cause the accident that injured the SABS claimant, the test doesn\u2019t include the term \u201caccident.\u201d\u00a0 The test is whether the two vehicles were involved in the same \u201cincident,” and the court was satisfied that they were.\u00a0 Much of the decision turns on the judges assessment that the priority rules, and other provisions of the Insurance Act,\u00a0<\/em>shift no-fault obligations in ways that are not always equitable, but are otherwise designed to have payout obligations resolved quickly.\u00a0<\/p>\n