Employment Insurance (EI)

Decision

[1] On November 12, 2014, a member of the General Division determined that the appeal of the Appellant from the previous determination of the Commission should be dismissed.  In due course, the Appellant filed an application requesting leave to appeal to the Appeal Division.

[2] Subsection 58(1) of the Department of Employment and Social Development Act states that the only grounds of appeal are that:

1. (a) The General Division failed to observe a principle of natural justice or otherwise acted beyond or refused to exercise its jurisdiction;
2. (b) The General Division erred in law in making its decision, whether or not the error appears on the face of the record; or
3. (c) The General Division based its decision on an erroneous finding of fact that it made in a perverse or capricious manner or without regard for the material before it.

[3] The Act also states that leave to appeal is to be refused if the appeal has “no reasonable chance of success”.

[4] In his application, the Appellant re-states at length many of the arguments he made before the General Division and asks that the Appeal Division “examine all documents I have presented previously”.  The Appellant is essentially asking that I re- weigh the evidence and come to conclusions different from those already rendered.

[5] The role of the Appeal Division is to determine if a reviewable error set out in ss. 58(1) of the Act has been made by the General Division and if so to provide a remedy for that error.  In the absence of such a reviewable error, the law does not permit the Appeal Division to intervene.  It is not our role to re-weigh the evidence or re-hear the case de novo.

[6] It is not sufficient for an Appellant to plead that the General Division member was mistaken in his or her conclusions and ask the Appeal Division for a different outcome. In order to have a reasonable chance of success, the Appellant must explain in some detail how in their view at least one reviewable error set out in the Act has been made. Having failed to do so, this application for leave to appeal does not have a reasonable chance of success and must be refused.