An Ontario tribunal has ordered the restoration of full wage-loss benefits to an airline worker with post-traumatic stress disorder for a six-year period during which her insurer assumed she could work as an office clerk — despite medical evidence showing she could barely leave her home.
The Workplace Safety and Insurance Appeals Tribunal ruled Dec. 22, 2025, that the worker was incapable of any meaningful employment from September 2012 to June 2018, entitling her to full loss-of-earnings benefits for that entire period.
The decision has direct relevance for employers and HR teams managing workers with psychological injuries, particularly where return-to-work assumptions are built on vocational assessments rather than current medical evidence.
The crash and what followed
The worker, a flight attendant, was near an airliner crash and fire on Aug. 2, 2005. PTSD symptoms emerged over the following year and she has been off work since July 2006.
She received full wage-loss benefits until September 2012, when the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board determined she could work as an administrative office clerk at minimum wage and cut her benefits accordingly. She never returned to work in that role.
In 2023, the WSIB accepted her PTSD had significantly worsened by June 2018 and restored full benefits from that point. The worker appealed, arguing she had never been capable of working and that her benefits should have remained at the full rate throughout.
The tribunal agreed.
Avoidance was the central barrier
Medical records spanning years of treatment told a consistent story. The worker was diagnosed with PTSD, agoraphobia, anxiety, and depression. A psychiatrist who assessed her in 2008 identified avoidance as the defining obstacle to her recovery.
“Avoidance appears to be the most prominent difficulty that [the worker] experiences, which causes her the greatest amount of impairment,” the psychiatrist wrote. “Specifically, [the worker] acknowledged avoiding people, places, and activities that remind her of the accident on an almost daily basis. As a result of the avoidance, [the worker] has been unable to return to any type of work and she has also significantly socially withdrawn from coworkers.”
Her psychologist echoed that finding throughout years of treatment, noting avoidance was a common and well-documented symptom of PTSD that was actively impeding the worker’s progress.
Retraining collapsed under the weight of symptoms
By late 2010, with some improvement recorded, the WSIB approved a retraining plan aimed at a career in dental hygiene. The worker completed academic upgrading at a community college, where a disability accommodation office helped her manage. When she moved to a privately funded dental hygienist program, the environment was less supportive. Symptoms returned. Absences mounted. The school released her.
By the summer of 2012, her condition had deteriorated sharply. WSIB records from that period document a worker who was more anxious, isolating, and irritable, with anxiety approaching panic-attack levels.
Her psychologist, who had treated her since 2006, conducted a clinical interview in January 2013 and issued a report that the tribunal found pivotal. “Her condition has deteriorated to a level that would prevent her from engaging in any full time educational program or employment,” the psychologist wrote.
The report described a worker struggling to leave her home, interacting only with family and a small circle of friends, experiencing chronic high anxiety and occasional panic attacks, and finding even routine tasks — managing finances, organizing her day, housekeeping — difficult to complete.
One hour a day did not prove she could work
During the gap years, the worker volunteered at a school milk program and later took a paid position as a lunchroom supervisor, working one hour a day for roughly two years before her symptoms forced her to stop.
The WSIB had treated this activity as evidence of some capacity to work. The tribunal rejected that interpretation.
“The fact the worker attempted work is commendable,” the tribunal stated, “but due to its limited hours and very sedentary nature, this employment does not establish substantive, sustainable employability.”
Family doctor records confirmed the PTSD diagnosis remained unchanged throughout the period, with the worker treated consistently with medication. The tribunal found no evidence of meaningful improvement between 2012 and 2018.
What the tribunal ordered
The panel ruled the worker was entitled to full loss-of-earnings benefits from Sept. 28, 2012, to June 8, 2018, less any time actually worked. Given the years that had passed, the tribunal suggested deductions be calculated using T-4 slips from the years she held the lunchroom position rather than attempting to reconstruct specific dates.
The tribunal also noted that the worker’s attempts to participate in retraining and limited work were consistent with her documented condition — and that her eventual withdrawal from both was equally consistent with her PTSD symptoms, particularly avoidance.
For more information, see Decision No. 246/25, 2025 ONWSIAT 1528 (CanLII).
