Taylor Mergui Files $80M Class Action Against WSIB On Behalf Of Over 100,000 Injured Workers
Taylor Mergui Law Group is pleased to represent lead plaintiff Gordon Polevoy and a proposed class of injured workers in an $80 million class action against Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board (WSIB) for unauthorized benefit calculations, unpaid cost-of-living increases, and violations of the Workplace Safety and Insurance Act.
The statement of claim, filed in the Ontario Superior Court of Justice, accuses the WSIB of ignoring its statutory obligation to index annual benefits to the Consumer Price Index (CPI). Instead, the suit alleges the Board created an unauthorized 24-month "averaging method" that suppressed the annual benefit increases injured workers were legally entitled to receive.
In 2022, when the CPI surged 4.7%, the WSIB capped worker benefit increases at just 2.7%, a shortfall that, once compounded year-over-year, can follow injured workers for decades, in some cases into retirement. For a worker earning $1,000 a week in 2022, that gap meant a loss of more than $1,000 in benefits that year alone. Firm estimates place the total impact at over 100,000 injured workers losing an additional 2% benefit increase at the start of 2022 alone.
The WSIB has defended its methodology, telling media that its averaging approach mirrors how the Canada Pension Plan calculates cost-of-living adjustments to CPP disability benefits and produces a more reasonable reflection of inflation over the full year than a point-in-time calculation.
Partner Ryan O'Connor and Senior Associate Gurpreet Farmaha are leading the class action on behalf of the firm. This is a matter of great public importance, not only in recovering the benefits owed to injured firefighters, police officers, frontline workers, tradespeople, and employees across Ontario, but in holding the WSIB, which administers a $40-billion employer-paid fund, accountable for shortchanging the very workers it exists to protect.
If you or your clients are affected workers, please contact ryano@tmpi.ca or gurpreet@tmpi.ca.