Canada Pension Plan (CPP) disability

Decision and reasons

Decision

[1] Leave to appeal is refused.

Overview

[2] The Claimant is a former technician who was previously employed by a manufacturer of scientific instruments. He was laid off in 2011, when operations moved to the United States, and he has since held periodic work contracts. In January 2013, while visiting Colombia, he was shot during a robbery. He sustained extensive fractures and other injuries to his left hand, for which he underwent complex reconstructive surgery.

[3] The Claimant is now 62 years old. In October 2017, he applied for Canada Pension Plan (CPP) disability benefits, claiming that he could no longer work because of a number of medical conditions, including depression, left shoulder and low back pain, ocular rosacea, insomnia, fatigue, and memory deficits.

[4] The Minister refused the application because, in its view, the Claimant had not shown that he had a severe and prolonged disability as of his minimum qualifying period (MQP),^{Footnote 1} which ended on December 31, 2013.

[5] The Claimant appealed the Minister’s refusal to the Social Security Tribunal’s General Division. The General Division held a hearing by teleconference and, in a decision dated September 25, 2020, dismissed the appeal, finding insufficient medical evidence that the Claimant was disabled during the MQP and continuously thereafter. In particular, the General Division found that the Claimant’s left hand injury did not prevent him from working, and it saw no indication that his other conditions arose before December 31, 2013.

[6] On November 12, 2020, the Claimant submitted an application requesting leave to appeal from the Appeal Division. In it, he said that he continued to have the same mental and physical disabilities as were reported by his doctors.

[7] The Tribunal then sent a letter reminding the Claimant that the Appeal Division can only look at specific errors on the part of the General Division. The Tribunal asked the Claimant to provide further reasons why he was appealing and set a deadline of January 4, 2021 to respond. To date, the Tribunal has not received any reply from the Claimant.

[8] I have reviewed the General Division’s decision against the underlying record. I have concluded that the Claimant has not advanced any grounds that would have a reasonable chance of success on appeal.

Issue

[9] There are only three grounds of appeal to the Appeal Division. A claimant must show that the General Division acted unfairly, interpreted the law incorrectly, or based its decision on an important error of fact.^{Footnote 2}

[10] An appeal can proceed only if the Appeal Division first grants leave to appeal.^{Footnote 3} At this stage, the Appeal Division must be satisfied that the appeal has a reasonable chance of success.^{Footnote 4} This is a fairly easy test to meet, and it means that a claimant must present at least one arguable case.^{Footnote 5}

[11] I have to decide whether the Claimant has an arguable case.

Analysis

[12] To succeed at the Appeal Division, a claimant must do more than simply disagree with the General Division’s decision. A claimant must also identify specific errors that the General Division made in coming to its decision and explain how those errors, if any, fit into the one or more of the three grounds of appeal permitted under the law.

[13] The Claimant argues that the General Division dismissed his appeal in the face of medical evidence showing that he suffers from disabling depression, among other conditions. I don’t see a reasonable chance of success for this argument.

[14] The General Division is tasked with, among other things, establishing the facts, and it is entitled to some leeway in how it chooses to weigh the evidence. In this case, the General Division noted that the Claimant stopped working in 2011 for non-medical reasons. It also noted that the only evidence on file that spoke to the Claimant’s condition during the MQP were medical reports about his hand injury. The General Division referred to a June 2013 clinical note, in which an orthopedic surgeon mentioned that the Claimant was “able to function well” and had gone back to full-time work as a computer programmer. As the General Division noted, there was nothing in the note to indicate that the surgeon had any concerns about the Claimant’s employment, nor was there any evidence elsewhere suggesting that his hand condition had worsened since then.

[15] The General Division then considered the Claimant’s other conditions and found no indication that they contributed to any impairment before December 31, 2013: “The evidence established the Claimant’s back, left shoulder and right hip pain began after he fell in November 2015, poor right eye vision began in 2016, and depression with resultant fatigue and cognitive difficulties began in 2017.”^{Footnote 6}

[16] I don’t see an arguable case that the General Division erred in making these findings. The General Division acknowledged that the Claimant was probably disabled now, but that did not mean he was disabled in 2013. My review of its decision indicates that the General Division meaningfully analyzed the available information and came to the defensible conclusion that the Claimant did not have a condition that prevented him from regularly pursuing a substantially gainful occupation as of the MQP.

[17] While the General Division did not arrive at the conclusion that the Claimant would have preferred, I cannot, as a member of the Appeal Division, reassess the evidence and make my own determination of disability. An appeal to the Appeal Division is not an opportunity for a claimant to re-argue their case and ask for a different outcome. My authority permits me to determine only whether any of the Claimant’s reasons for appealing fall within the specified grounds of appeal and whether any of them have a reasonable chance of success.

Conclusion

[18] The Claimant has not identified any grounds of appeal that would have a reasonable chance of success on appeal. Thus, the application for leave to appeal is refused.