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Introduction and Overview.
Hello, my name is Armand, and I was a nurse in the province of British Columbia, Canada, until I found myself permanently disabled through a workplace accident. Thank you for reading my Truth Project about disability insurance practices and their effects on the permanently disabled unionized workers of BC.
In BC, all unionized employment exposes you to a system of corruption. I discovered this systemic corruption when I became permanently disabled from my occupation. In 1987, I was awarded permanent disability benefits by a tribunal of doctors known as a Claims Review Committee (CRC).
Decisions reached by a CRC are expected to be final and binding since the CRC is legally considered to be a Court of Last Resort. However, three years later my claim was denied and my benefits terminated without just cause by the insurance plan administrators.
In the process of standing up for myself as a disabled worker, I have had my employment records altered; so-called professionals misrepresented me to regulatory bodies, and Independent Medical Experts (IMEs) falsified my medical reports and maligned my character to support their lies.
My quest for fair treatment as a disabled worker eventually led me all the way to the BC Supreme Court. Imagine my shock when the judge told me he could not offer an opinion or make a ruling on my petition because the BC Labor Relations Board (LRB) have emasculated the courts and judges are fearful of losing their jobs. However, even though the judge was not allowed to rule on my petition, he declared it to be truthful and free of fraud on my part.
In all the 14 years of pursuing justice for myself (1991- 2005) I never did receive the fair and impartial review of my case that I was seeking. My family and I were left to suffer great personal and financial hardship, and we are still struggling. However, I am now in the very exciting position of being able to share my account of these experiences with you and move on with my goals of recovering my physical and financial health and creating a resource center to help other unionized workers avoid or recover from experiences such as mine.
As you read my story, I hope you understand that it could be about you, a family member, or a friend. It doesn’t make any difference who you are or what your occupation: this could happen to you. When you’re convinced that it’s true, just as my BC Supreme Court Judge was, then, please help me get the word out by telling everyone you know to read about this aspect of working in BC. Help me build my resource center that will provide real solutions to the hidden issues in the workplace.
My resource center will offer recommendations that you and your friends can use to empower yourselves in the workplace. To survive these experiences I had to develop my intuition and uncover the hidden gifts inside my disability. I learned healthy ways to manage my anger and fear by developing effective communication skills and optimizing my lifestyle through diet, meditation, and energy healing. The center will hold educational and inspirational methods, strategies, and tutorials to explore the psychological factors affecting disabled people. Issues such as motivation, sense of self-worth and well-being. My desire is to help you recognize and rejuvenate your creativity and unique contributions in life.
The Workplace Injury
After a well-documented serious workplace knee injury, which resulted in four surgeries, including patelloplasty and a patellectomy, I developed chronic and degenerative osteoarthritis and was unable to continue my nursing work. According to my workplace collective agreement, my union ordered an arbitration hearing for me.
The First Claims Review Committee (CRC)
I was sent to see a Claims Review Committee (CRC) of three medical doctors who were to determine if I was permanently disabled under the terms of my Long Term Disability (LTD) insurance plan provided by my employer.
According to the Labour Relations Code, CRCs are considered to be arbitration boards. They are deemed to be final and binding on everyone involved. According to the code, “the decision or award of an arbitration board under this code is final and conclusive and is not open to question or review in a court on any grounds whatsoever, and proceedings by or before an arbitration board must not be restrained by injunction, prohibition or other process in a court and are not removable by certiorari or otherwise into a court. The CRC decision is therefore…deemed for all purposes, except an appeal from it, to be an order of the Supreme Court.”
The CRC was sent a letter describing their powers and authority over all the parties before the court stating, “The CRC is a ‘court of last resort’ on all medical / vocational matters and its decision on medical matters is final and binding on medical issues. It is designed to have the last word on the issue of the existence or non-existence of a medical disability.”
The CRC was to determine if I was permanently disabled under the terms of the plan, by answering this question, “Was this employee totally disabled from performing the duties of ‘any gainful occupation’ as defined under the plan, as at the end of his ‘own occupation period.’ In determining whether the employee is capable of performing the duties of any gainful occupation, consider the abilities of the individual claimant, including his physical and/or mental condition(s), education, training and experience.”
The Award
Three medical doctors awarded me a unanimous CRC medical decision. Here is the evidenced-based opinion from that CRC report to the insurer:
“He is totally disabled from working at any work which involves lifting, bending, walking (except for short distances within a confined space) etc. We base this opinion on the presence of crepitus, tenderness and a marked instability of his left knee, wasting of musculature above and below the left knee, and the presence of increasing pain whenever he increases the movement of the knee, even for short periods.”
“He is not totally disabled from working at sedentary occupations but he cannot work full time at any occupation because of continuous and increasing pain in his left knee if he assumes one position for extended periods.”
“Our best judgement of his capabilities suggests that he would be capable of working no more than four hours per day and for three to four days in the week. He will not be pain-free during these hours but the amount of pain, in our opinion, should be tolerable. We recognize that a judgement on the presence or degree of pain is a difficult one. There is however, sufficient evidence on arthroscopic examinations of severe pathology, especially in the lateral compartment of the left knee, to account for his pain.”
“Taking the above factors into account as to his physical disability, and allowing that he can only work part time; and allowing for his present level of education and experience, we are unable to conclude that he could earn a rate of pay equal to 85% of the rate of pay of his usual occupation.”
I won the arbitration hearing and temporarily received payments.
The Betrayal
Three years after the CRC awarded me permanent, final and binding LTD benefits, the insurer terminated my disability benefits by claiming I had violated their disability contract and was not under the care of a medical doctor. In fact, I was under the care of two doctors. My orthopedic surgeon assessed me annually, and I saw my primary care physician every three months.
Official medical reports were required and submitted to the plan for maintaining eligibility for benefits. I resubmitted to the insurer copies of the annual reports my orthopedic surgeon sent to the insurer. My primary care physician also wrote and confirmed that I was under his full-time medical supervision.
The plan administrator rejected this ongoing yearly medical evidence that supported the CRC report and its findings of permanent disability. She also dismissed a letter from my doctor attesting to my compliance with their requirements regarding supervision by two doctors, and I lost my benefits.
Health Authority Becomes Hostile
Following the termination of my LTD benefits, I filed a complaint with my employer and met with the hospital’s senior Labour Relations Advisor. I demonstrated to her the physician’s reports that proved I was in compliance with the terms of my contract regarding doctor supervision and as such still entitled to my CRC awarded benefits.
She refused to intervene or assist in any way and stated that the plan and its agent were right to terminate my benefits. She told me I had made no effort to help myself and she had no empathy for my situation. She opined that my orthopedic surgeon’s findings were not objective. Finally, she suggested that I learn how to make baskets and birdhouses for a living. Yes, she did say that! She told me I had done “nothing to deserve the continuation of my benefits and that if I had only applied myself and done something, anything, maybe the plan may have kept me on.”
I continued to advocate for reconsideration of my claim by appealing to my union, only to be told that neither the health authority nor the union could do anything for me. Both my employer and my union refused to accept the terms and conditions of my collective agreement and the legally binding CRC disability award, even though they were party to both of these agreements.
BC Doctor Perverts My IME
I persisted in my efforts, and being permanently disabled and dependent upon my benefits for my survival, felt coerced into attending an Independent Medical Examination (IME) in 1990. My health authority employer sent a prejudicial letter to the IME that he used to deny my workplace accident and falsify my medical records.
The IME report states there was no precipitating trauma, in other words, no workplace injury. He went on to interpret my orthopedic x-rays, saying he was “dumbfounded to find that far from showing any gross degenerative changes, they appear to show very little abnormality whatsoever.”
He expressed his “professional” medical opinion of me in these words: “My honest gut feeling about this man is that he is happily unemployed…I recommend most strongly that we kill this Phoenix before it has time to rise from the ashes. I will be enclosing my account which I trust your firm will deal with in its usual courteous and efficient manner.”
When I confronted this IME about his false report of my actual medical/surgical findings, he refused to correct his opinion. Instead, he told me the insurer had misunderstood him. The truth is that the insurer completely understood the IME report and acted on it by terminating my benefits.
I wrote to the insurance agent protesting their decision. My orthopedic surgeon and member of the original CRC also wrote to them on my behalf.
I quote the following from my surgeon’s letter, “….although a patient may have normal-appearing x-rays, he can still have significant degenerative arthritis, such as was documented for this patient at his most recent arthroscopy…It is well known that at least 50% of the articular surface within a joint has to be destroyed before even subtle changes can be seen on x-rays – i.e. x-rays only show terminal changes.”
“I find it truly alarming that you, as a non-physician administrator, can overrule the previous decision of your own claims review committee and my yearly assessments of this patient, indicating that he is significantly and permanently disabled.”
“…According to your own definition, he remains totally disabled – i.e. he would be unable to earn 85% of his previous earnings at any kind of occupation within his present degree of education, training and experience…”
“This patient is obviously appealing your decision and I shall be pleased to appear on his behalf before another Claims Review Committee. I think it is disgusting that an administrator such as yourself can over-rule previous well thought out medical decisions, with your decision providing this patient unnecessary grief and anxiety while he is waiting to have it overturned.”
Forced Into My Second and Third CRC
The chairman of my second CRC wrote a report nobody could understand and that contained dangerous medical misinformation about my orthopedic condition and surgeries. He ultimately failed to do the job entrusted to him, which was to consider all the actual evidence and make a determination under the terms of the insurance plan. His failure forced the plan administrator to write to him to let him know she was unable to determine whether or not the committee found me disabled under the terms of the scheme.
Three years later my third CRC was convened with this same chairman. He was infuriated with me and insisted that I had no right to reconvene the board and continuously interrupted my presentation with angry outbursts. At one point, he shook the insurer’s submission to the committee in my face and then slammed it down on his desk. He further insisted that he knew all about the disabled since he had a daughter with a disability and she wasn’t entitled to benefits either.
It was extremely unpleasant to endure his bias toward me, but the worst part was that he further perverted my medical history. He insisted that I had my knee cap removed in my childhood and somehow became a nurse only to quit work because of pain. He kept getting mixed up as to which of my knees was the problem. Then he cleared me to work full-time! By the time he got finished with me my medical history was so obfuscated that I could never get the record set straight, although I continued to try.
Futile Attempts To Restore My True Medical History
I wrote letters to this chairman, the insurance plan administrator, and doctor, as well as my employer and union, reiterating the facts of my medical history and expressing my anger at his treatment of me. My primary care physician also wrote to them in support of correcting my medical history.
I filed a complaint with the College of Physicians and Surgeons against this chairman of the CRC and the insurer’s doctor who first falsified my medical facts and received this in response: “The Doctors appear to have expressed medical opinions based on evidence and information available to them. Doctor’s opinions are frequently at variance with one another. The College has no authority or resources to measure the validity of one opinion over another. The fact that the opinions of Doctors are at variance with your own and other physicians and do not support your own needs does not make them improper or invalid. I must insist that this matter be concluded. Any further correspondence with the College concerning this matter will not be acknowledged.”
I appealed to my union representative who assured me that the employer must hear all complaints and advised me to file a grievance for wrongful denial of long-term disability benefits.
Vocational Assessment
The third CRC had suggested that a vocational assessment would be helpful in making a determination but did not order one for their consideration although this was within their mandate. As well as filing a grievance, my union representative thought the CRCs suggestion might help my case and arranged a vocational assessment for me.
In October 1997 I completed a three-day professional evaluation by an Independent Certified Vocational Specialist. He received copies of the same documents that the third CRC Chairman used to come to his opinion.
The Vocational Specialist’s report reads, “Medical reports provided in this file appear to be contradictory in content, making any form of interpretation of limitations extremely difficult. Furthermore, medical documentation often appears to be subjective and judgmental in nature.”
This Independent Certified Vocational Specialist confirmed the opinion of my First CRC and stated, “To the question is he an employee who is able by reason of education, training, or experience to perform the duties of any gainful occupation for which the rate of pay equals or exceeds eighty-five (85%) of the rate of his/her regular occupation at the date of disability, the answer is no, not at this time. While he is employable, he is not place-able in the competitive workplace at this time.”
My orthopedic surgeon who was a member of all three arbitration hearings wrote to the plan and requested reconsideration as the vocational assessment and medical evidence supported it. The insurer refused his request. I wrote to the insurer, and they passed the buck claiming that the LRB could send it back. Of course, the LRB declined to do so!
I was then pushed down the duty to accommodate path even though my employer could never accommodate me back to work because my disability prevented me from working within the rules set out in the collective agreement. I attended meetings only as a strategy to keep my grievance of wrongful denial of LTD Benefits alive.
Duty To Accommodate Me Back To Work Breaks Collective Agreement
In September 1998 I attended a meeting with my employer’s rehabilitation consultant. She made it clear that she could not place me because of my disability. She advised me that I would be responsible for the cost of retraining because the employer will not pay. She stated that in her experience with the plan involving nursing staff, she knew of no one whose retraining had been paid for by the insurance plan because they believe that nursing department staff have the required transferable skills to any job.
Also at that meeting, she advised me that I did not qualify for any union scale jobs within the Health Authority even though the plan administrator insisted that I did. I again asked for one of those jobs that the assistant medical director said was available to me through my work. I even suggested such things as on-the-job training, working alongside someone until I learned the ropes. I offered to work for free in exchange for experience.
She reiterated that I was not placeable in the workplace and that accommodating me back to work was impossible. She told me that the primary problem was the collective agreement as it does not allow an employee to work less than four (4) consecutive hours. According to her, accommodating me back to work would break the agreement because my disability prevents me from working four straight hours.
I could have had the best training at anything you care to mention, and still would not have been employable because the collective agreement would not allow for it.
My health authority and my union expressed further concerns about accommodating me back to work. They claimed that placing me would be unfair and cause undue hardship on the head of any department who would have to deal with resentment from other employees.
They were also afraid that they would be exposed to possible legal action if I injured myself again and insisted that the health authority would not accept any job performance medical evaluation from any doctor clearing me to work part-time (i.e. four consecutive hours). Clearly, my issue was about disability and not employability.
Health Authority Refuses To Hear My Grievance And Fires Me
In January 2001 my employer called a meeting with me saying they wished to discuss my grievance. Instead, they terminated my employment and fired me.
The Health Authority representative had no interest in my claim for wrongful denial of LTD benefits. When I asked her if she would ever hear my complaint, she gave a little chuckle, leaned back in her chair, folded her arms across her chest, shook her head from side to side and stated with a smile, “I will never, ever, go down that road with you.”
I told my employer’s representatives that they violated my rights under the collective agreement and that the chairman of the CRC filed a false medical report. I again told the health authority that I was under the full-time medical supervision of two doctors when they terminated my benefits.
I asked her again if she was going to hear my grievance. She said, “NO” and loudly demanded that I account for my life. She wanted to know what I had done with ‘it.’ I told the members of the meeting to put their reasons for termination in writing and left feeling very disturbed.
I had filed a complaint about unjust denial of long-term disability benefits with my Ombudsman’s office before I got fired. Three years later the office got back to me with the response that they have no jurisdiction over anything to do with unionized workers disability claims.
Then I took my complaint to the BC Human Rights Commission. They have no jurisdiction over disability matters, and they deferred to the Labour Relations Board and my employer.
I learned that these offices are administrative courts only, referred to as quasi-judicial courts in BC. They accept unsworn testimony as if it is a fact and have no real authority for anything legal.
Hope For Justice And Fair Hearing Gone
In 2003 I found a lawyer I could trust and with whom I felt comfortable. He was a man with a huge heart and a real love for the law. He had considerable experience in the Supreme Court of Canada, and I retained him to advise me on a Judicial Review to the BC Supreme Court.
He wrote this about the LRB in his analysis report to me, “It is probably an unwise expenditure of your resources to have me critique the January 2002 Labour Relations Board decision. They appear to me to all be boilerplate rejections. A critique of one is usually the same as the critique of all the others. There has never been in my experience an objective review of union’s conduct pursuant to section 12 except in the most egregious of situations where quite frankly, your neighbour next door would be able to ascertain that there had been a failure of duty of fair representation.”
My lawyer told me that justice and fairness are gone. He wrote, “The LRB will pick and choose from material sent by the parties, none of which need be in sworn form (affidavit), and reconstruct the ‘facts’ from that material in accordance with whatever precedent it feels is most calming and expedient. The decision comes out as a ‘desk order’, with no hearing or any cross-examination of unproven allegations of fact.”
“It is very difficult to succeed in a judicial review of a LRB decision as the standard for review is extraordinary, all at the altar of ‘deference.’ This is not lost on the LRB.”
The LRB rarely convenes hearings. Instead, it meets at the members’ convenience and accepts submissions that are unsworn. This deprives you of your fundamental process rights. Cases become managed politically, and this erodes the rule of law. With the LRB’s unreasonable standards and their hands-off policy toward the Union regarding the duty of fair representation, you will never, ever prove your case!
LRB Interferes With Fair Hearings In BC
As a disabled worker, you eventually begin to realize that your employer, the union and the LRB are part of a matrix that you unknowingly agreed to by going to work for them. When years go by after you file your grievance for wrongful denial of LTD benefits and your employer continues to ignore your claim, you realize that the respect and protection that they contractually promised you don’t exist.
The LRB works behind the scenes, inside the Courts, to erode your rights to a fair hearing. It does this by arguing against your labour rights inside the Agreement. I saw firsthand in the BC Supreme Courtroom just how aggressive the LRB can be in defense of its code and laws.
The LRB lawyer was at my trial to enforce its laws and remind the Court that it had no right to act on my behalf. In fact, the LRB lawyer stood before the BC Supreme Court Judge lecturing him on case law. He went on at great length as to why the Courts had no right to interfere with the decisions and rulings of a Claims Review Committee (CRC) or any other form of arbitration board hearing. My BC Supreme Court Judge was condescended to and summarily put in his place.
LRB litigators attend important labour rights cases like mine and instruct the Courts on the case laws they have lobbied for and pushed through. I didn’t invite them to my trial, and my complaint wasn’t about them, but they showed up and did most of the argumentative work for the insurer.
My two-day adventure in the BC Supreme Court marked the end of my pursuit of a fair hearing of my petition for wrongful denial of long-term disability benefits. My lawyer suggested that I burn all my papers in a backyard bonfire. However, I knew that somehow there was another chapter to be told in this story because many other people have suffered the same fate with no one speaking for them.
So, instead, I went home and packed all my documents in banker’s boxes and stored them for a future day. I believe that day is now. I can finally bring awareness of these disturbing practices out in the open and receive a fair hearing from you, my readers.
Moving Forward
I grew up in a family and time where your values and integrity defined who you were. My father, uncles, and grandfathers made enormous personal sacrifices in two world wars to protect human rights for all people in our society. So I began my nursing career with high ideals and optimism and felt proud to be counted among those professionals who care for the sick and injured.
I believed that everyone in the health care system had good intentions towards others and that medical evidence and opinions were reality-based. I thought my values of personal accountability, fairness, and truth, were shared and upheld by my colleagues and other professionals working in medicine.
The stress and frustration of so many years of dealing with false promises and the absolute futility of my BC Supreme Court appearance took a big toll on me and my health quickly declined. I have been mostly bedridden since 2011 with severe adrenal failure. In June 2014 I was in dire straits. I could barely sit up or get out of bed. I was still desperately ill. My weight had dropped from 160lbs to 109lbs, and I looked like death.
I was facing a severe, life-threatening illness and the BC health care system had no solutions for me. So I left my doctors and the mainstream medical system to seek my alternative cure and became Vegan. I am healing now and taking back control of my life. A side benefit of not relying on doctors was that I discovered real solutions to my problems of pain, stress, fear, and anxiety. In August 2016 I was well enough to consider creating this project.
My experience has also left me in dire financial straits because no one lives well on $ 800.00 per month. I am just about out of money and will lose my home to foreclosure if I am not able to raise some money by Christmas 2016. I am in a real fix because I am not well enough yet to even consider packing up my belongings let alone moving my household.
My workplace accident was a wake-up call to me and my experience with permanent disability and the ongoing issues that accompany a forced lifestyle change have taught me many positive things about life and myself. The most important truth I learned is that marvelous, unexpected answers and solutions to my life problems are right inside my personal suffering. The solutions I found are all natural and easy to implement in a gentle way.
I have developed and matured by going through these painful disability experiences and finding effective ways to heal myself. My Truth Project has evolved too, and I desire to bring it out in a new way. To achieve this, I have been studying network marketing during my lengthy illness.
Now I am seeking your financial support and assistance in getting my project out to all unionized workers in BC who are facing disability or other emotional and physical challenges in the workplace.
It is my deepest hope that you will support me with a donation and by telling others about my Truth Project. Your donations and referrals on social networks will help me pay my mortgage and bills so I can remain in my home while I recover my health and build my DenyDisability Truth Project resource center and consulting business.
A Gift In Return For Your Support
I sincerely appreciate your help with promoting my cause, and your donations of money to help me thrive and create my work. So I would love to give you something in return.
My friend, Darilynn, is a student of the IAM Heart University graduating in the summer of 2017. She is an instructor of Heart Rhythm Meditation and enrolled in the university’s graduate program in Hurqalya energy healing. She is very excited to incorporate these beautiful energy practices into her Creativity Coaching and Tarot Counseling work in Victoria, B.C.
Together it is our joy to offer you a free video workshop on stress reduction with heart rhythm meditation.
Heart Rhythm Meditation is a healthy alternative for everyone who has difficulty with stress in the workplace. It brings your breath and heartbeat into coherence, thereby harmonizing your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems. The results for you are more clarity and creativity, peace of mind and increased safety in the workplace.
The two of us will create a lovely training with instructional video for you. Please remember that I am ill with chronic adrenal fatigue and on a steep learning curve with internet marketing. We hope to have the course ready by the early New Year.
If you found this truth project helpful, please consider donating to this worthy cause of bringing awareness to the unionized workers of BC and anywhere worker’s rights are being threatened. Go here to give right now. Enter your name and email through this link for your complimentary Heart Rhythm Meditation Training. Take this first step now to greater health, satisfaction and safety in your workplace.
Bless you for your kindness and your desire to live a life of awareness and accountability.