Using modified test, ruling finds arresting officers’ acts, not vehicle use, caused man’s injury
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal has affirmed the denial of no-fault benefits under the Automobile Accident Insurance Act upon finding no direct or consequential causal relationship between a deceased man’s injuries and the use of a motor vehicle.
In Umpherville v Saskatchewan Government Insurance, 2025 SKCA 69, the appeal court discussed the agreed statement of facts regarding the Apr. 1, 2023 incident that led to the man’s death.
Officers of the Prince Albert Police Service pulled over a mid-sized sedan, where the deceased was sitting in the front passenger seat. The officers stopped their car in front of the sedan and began investigating it.
An altercation arose. Police attempted to arrest the deceased and remove him from the sedan. At some point, while the man was in the driver’s seat, the officers repeatedly struck him with batons and electrocuted him with tasers. The sedan lurched forward and hit the police car.
Police pulled the deceased from the vehicle while he was unconscious. He never regained consciousness and died in the hospital on Apr. 26, 2023. The hospital’s discharge summary stated that police had tasered the man while apprehending him, and he had remained comatose because of an anoxic injury and global cerebral ischemia due to cardiac arrest.
According to the agreed statement of facts, the low-speed collision between the sedan and the police car did not cause the man’s injuries, such as the cardiac arrest causing the coma that eventually led to his death. Rather, the statement said the tasing and striking with batons caused injuries, such as blunt force trauma, which resulted in death.
As the estate’s administrator, the deceased’s mother applied to Saskatchewan Government Insurance (SGI) for death benefits under the no-fault provisions in part VIII of Saskatchewan’s Automobile Accident Insurance Act, 1978 (AAIA).
SGI refused no-fault benefits under s. 101(1.1) of the AAIA, which covers bodily injury caused by a motor vehicle arising out of an accident, since the man died of his coma because of an anoxic injury and global cerebral ischemia due to his cardiac arrest, not because of the vehicular accident.
The mother appealed SGI’s decision to the Automobile Insurance Appeal Commission, which upheld the denial of benefits. Thus, the mother elevated the case to the appeal court. She alleged errors in the commission’s interpretation of the applicable AAIA provisions and its analysis of the causal relationship requirement.
Benefits denied
The Court of Appeal for Saskatchewan dismissed the appeal. First, the appeal court modified the test in Amos v Insurance Corporation of British Columbia, 1995 CanLII 66 (SCC), [1995] 3 SCR 405, for use in Saskatchewan.
The appeal court restated the Amos test as follows:
- Did the accident result from an ordinary and well-known use to which motor vehicles are put?
- Is there a direct or consequential causal relationship, one that is more than merely incidental or fortuitous, between the claimant’s injuries and the use of a motor vehicle?
The appeal court differentiated between the AAIA and the Insurance (Motor Vehicle) Act, BC Reg 447/83, which applied in Amos. The appeal court recognized the requirement that the test fit with the legislative language and purpose in the relevant jurisdiction.
The appeal court noted that the reformulated test:
- aligned with the language in the AAIA’s pertinent provisions, read as a whole and in the grammatical and ordinary sense
- attained the legislative scheme’s purpose
- offered a broad scope for no-fault benefits
- provided that such benefits were available only for injuries caused by a motor vehicle
- excluded injuries with a remote connection to the vehicle
- considered the distinction between the AAIA and the BC law applied in Amos
- led to an assessment narrower than the Amos test, as the legislative language required
Next, the appeal court applied this modified test. The appeal court said the case easily met the test’s first part since the sedan had been transporting the deceased as a passenger, an ordinary and well-known use for a motor vehicle.
The appeal court then ruled that the case failed to fulfill the test’s second part. The appeal court accepted that the injuries occurred inside a vehicle.
However, the appeal court saw no direct or consequential causal relationship between the man’s injuries and the vehicle’s use. The appeal court noted that his mere presence in the sedan was not enough to establish the necessary causal connection.
The appeal court explained that the sedan’s use did not cause the man’s injuries under the modified Amos test. According to the appeal court, the police officers’ force in conducting the arrest and the deceased’s role in the incident led to the injuries.
The appeal court concluded that the commission made no error in dismissing the appeal and affirmed its finding that the vehicle’s use or operation was merely incidental or fortuitous to the man’s injuries.
