Employment Insurance (EI)

Decision

[1] Leave (permission) to appeal the General Division decision is denied.

[2] This means A. H.’s appeal won’t go forward.^{Footnote 1}

Overview

[3] A. H. is the Claimant in this case. He is asking for permission to appeal a General Division decision. I will give him permission if he has a reasonable chance of winning his appeal.

[4] The General Division decided the Commission used its power properly, fairly, and in time when it reconsidered his claim.^{Footnote 2} It also decided he didn’t report some of his employment income during his EI claim. Finally, it decided the Commission correctly determined the amount of unreported income, and correctly allocated it to weeks in his claim.^{Footnote 3} So, the General Division dismissed his appeal.

[5] This left him with an overpayment and debt.^{Footnote 4}

[6] The Claimant disagrees with the General Division decision. On his application to appeal, he checked the box that says the General Division made an important factual error.

[7] But he hasn’t given any reasons or an explanation to support that error. And I didn’t find an arguable case the General Division made that error. This means he doesn’t have a reasonable chance of winning his appeal. And his appeal can’t go forward.

Issue

[8] Does the Claimant’s appeal have a reasonable chance of success?

I’m not giving the Claimant permission to appeal

[9] For the reasons that follow, I can’t give the Claimant permission to appeal.

The permission to appeal test screens out appeals without a reasonable chance of success^{Footnote 5}

[10] The Claimant has applied for permission to appeal. I give permission when there’s an arguable case the General Division made an error that gives a person a reasonable chance of winning their appeal.^{Footnote 6}

[11] The law says I can consider four types of errors—the General Division used an unfair procedure, or made a jurisdictional error, a legal error, or an important factual error.^{Footnote 7}

No arguable case the General Division made an important factual error

[12] The General Division makes an important factual error when it bases its decision on a factual finding it reached by ignoring or misunderstanding relevant evidence.^{Footnote 8} Relevant means evidence that fits into the legal test.

[13] The Claimant checked the important factual error box on his application form.^{Footnote 9} But he didn’t explain or give details or examples of how the General Division made this error. I wrote to him and gave him another chance to explain. He didn’t respond by the deadline I set.

[14] When a person doesn’t explain or give details about an alleged error, their argument about that error has no reasonable chance of success.^{Footnote 10} So, the Claimant’s important factual error argument has no reasonable chance of success.

[15] Before making my decision, I reviewed the documents in the General Division file.^{Footnote 11} Then I compared the evidence from the documents to the General Division’s factual findings and the evidence it used to reach those findings.^{Footnote 12} Unfortunately for the Claimant, I didn’t find an arguable case the General Division ignored or misunderstood relevant evidence. In other words, I didn’t find an arguable case the General Division made an important factual error.

Conclusion

[16] The Claimant’s appeal doesn’t have a reasonable chance of success. This means his appeal can’t go forward.