Tips For Launching Your WorkSafeBC Appeal

If you’re reading this, chances are your WorkSafeBC claim didn’t go as you planned.  Either part or all of your WorkSafeBC claim was denied.  Don’t take it personally.

What can you do?  Simple, you appeal.  The good news is many denied decisions are overturned on appeal.

When do you appeal a WorkSafeBC decision?

Most WorkSafeBC initial claim decisions must be appealed within 90 days fromt the date of the decision.  Look at your decision letter now and note the date.  Then count 90 days forward.  Don’t just add 3 months to day.  The deadline is in days, not months.

How to appeal your WorkSafeBC denial decision?

Appeal Procedure

Appealing a WorkSafeBC decision is a two-step process.  First you must file a Request for Review.  Second, you then submit your actual appeal submissions.  Request our free 3-pack of WCB reports by filling out the form to the right.  The report called “2 Tips for Launching a WorkSafeBC Appeal” gives you a strategy for coordinating this two-step appeal process to the Review Division.

Almost always, an appeal to the Review Division will be with written submissions rather than an oral hearing.  You can request an oral hearing, but it’s not routinely granted (unlike at the WCAT where you’ll more readily be granted an oral hearing).

Appeal Preparation

Preparing your WorkSafeBC appeal is the heart of the matter.  Where do you start?

I always start a WorkSafeBC appeal by reading the initial decision a few times.  Read it carefully.  Take note of the issues involved.  You can’t appeal issues that are not addressed in the decision.  Other issues may be decided in other decisions.  When appealing a particular appeal decision, you must confine the issues addressed in the appeal decision.  If you have other issues being dealt with by WorkSafeBC, then you should receive other decisions pertaining to those issues.

Also read the facts relied upon in the decision very carefully.  Then read the law and policy section carefully.

Once you have a decent understanding of the decision, sit back and think about how you can argue the decision is wrong.

Generally WorkSafeBC decisions apply the proper law and policy.  Where the decisions are most readily attacked are the facts on which the decision is made AND how the decision applied the facts to the law and policy.  The fact is, legal cases are all about the facts.

One nice aspect of the WorkSafeBC appeal process is you don’t need to be a legal scholar to launch a decent appeal.  Why?  Because the decision makers must make their own investigation into your claim.  If you fail to argue a particular policy, the decision maker is obligated to consider it anyway.

The most important part of a WorkSafeBC appeal is …

… the facts.  You need to set out facts, and explain those facts in a way that supports your case.  If you can, apply the facts to the law and policy as best as you can.  However, WorkSafeBC appeals are won in the details.

Which facts you set out will differ according to your case and issue.

How to make your WorkSafeBC appeal facts stronger?

You get evidence to support your facts.  For every fact you set out, do your best to support the fact with some kind of evidence.  WorkSafeBC appeals are won with facts supported by compelling evidence.

The where, what, and how of evidence?

To answer this question requires a small book.  There are all kinds of great evidence you can use and present in your WorkSafeBC appeal.  In fact, we did write a small book answering this question.  We also created a host of blueprint appeal submissions, and letter templates to help you prepare an evidence-based WorkSafeBC appeal.  It’s in our BC Workers’ Compensation Legal Kit.

Click here to learn more about the BC Workers’ Compensation Legal Kit

- created by lawyers who do WorkSafeBC appeals for injured workers.