CUB 59482

KRINDLE, Hon.

The commission appeals a decision of the board of referees allowing an antedate request pursuant to Section 10(4) of the Act.

The board properly asked itself "whether or not Mr. Tuck had good cause to delay filing his claim for benefits".The test for "good cause" has been articulated by the Federal Court of Appeal in Albrecht (A-172-85) as:

In my view, when a claimant has failed to file his claim in a timely way and his ignorance of the law is ultimately the reason for his failure, he ought to be able to satisfy the requirement of having "good cause" when he is able to show that he did what a reasonable person in his situation would have done to satisfy himself as to his rights and obligations under the Act. (emphasis mine)

What the claimant in this case is found to have done is to have relied upon a reasonable interpretation of the instructions contained on the Record of Employment. At the bottom of page 1 of the Record of Employment, it stated:

If you intend to file a claim for Employment Insurance income benefits you should do so immediately.

The claimant was aware that he was to obtain a substantial severance package and would not be able to receive benefits until that package had been allocated and exhausted. The printing of the back of the Record of Employment had more to say about his entitlement to benefits:

If you are not applying for benefits now, keep this and all other Records of Employment in a safe place for 2 years after the latest date recorded in block 11 of Copy 1. (that is the last date of the claimant's employment for the company for which he worked.)

The board found that the interpretation which Mr. Tuck attached to the two sections on the Record of Employment was reasonable. He read the back of the form to have meant that he had up to two years to apply for benefits and, when read in conjunction with the wording on the front of the form, to have meant that there would be no "negative sanction" if Mr. Tuck did not file immediately.

The commission says that the board applied the wrong test. It did not ask itself whether the claimant took such steps as a reasonable person in his situation would have done to satisfy himself as to his rights and obligations under the Act. I disagree. The board was satisfied that Mr. Tuck read the Record of Employment carefully to determine his rights and obligations under the Act and attached a reasonable interpretation to the wording contained in that form. It is implicit in the board's reasons, if not explicit, that a reasonable person could rely upon a reasonable interpretation of that official document and that, in doing so, would have done what a reasonable person would have done to satisfy himself as to his rights and obligations under the Act.

I am not satisfied that the board, in this case, has made any error of law or of fact. The appeal of the commission is dismissed.

Ruth Krindle

UMPIRE

OTTAWA, Ontario
December 23, 2003