It was wrong to deny a former Mountie compensation for a head injury he suffered trying to break up a raucous drinking party while he was on vacation because it was not directly connected to his RCMP service, even though a report at the time clearly drew that link, according to a Federal Court ruling.
A group of young men drinking in a Calgary park knocked Frederick Thompson Christie down and “struck him upwards of 50 times,” rendering him unconscious, after he told them to keep it down and clean up their mess in July 2004, according to Justice Phuong Ngo’s recent decision.
Veterans Affairs Canada, which handles such claims for the RCMP, denied Christie compensation for the assault, as did the Veterans Review and Appeal Board.
Last year, the appeal board dismissed Christie’s application for reconsideration.
Christie, an RCMP officer from April of 1982 until November of 2013, challenged that decision on the basis that the reconsideration panel “unreasonably concluded that his injury did not arise out of or was not directly connected to his RCMP service.”
Ngo, who granted Christie’s application for a judicial review, said the former Mountie “has demonstrated that the decision is unreasonable. The reconsideration panel misapprehended evidence on a central issue.”
While he was on vacation, Christie witnessed a group of young men “drinking and causing a disturbance in a park,” on July 23, 2004, Ngo said.
“Although (Christie) was not in uniform at the time, he considered it his duty as an off-duty police officer to intervene,” said the judge.
Christie, who had been cycling with his kids, sent his children home, “and then requested that the group of young males clean up their mess and cease the disturbance,” Ngo said.
“The young males refused, at which time (Christie) informed them that he would contact the Calgary Police Service. Two of the young males then assaulted (Christie), knocked him to the ground, struck him upwards of 50 times, and rendered him unconscious.”
Christie wound up in a hospital trauma ward for six days with head injuries. He “was ultimately diagnosed with a ‘closed head injury, brain contusion (and) facial nerve palsy,” Ngo wrote in her Oct. 29 decision.
He “experienced significant and ongoing difficulty” because of his injuries, she said.
Christie “was unable to return to work until late 2004, at which time he was only able to work half days in the office for a maximum of three to four days per week.”
He “suffered post-concussion difficulties, amnesia and cognitive and perceived neurological abnormalities,” as a result of the attack, said the judge. “It is also clear that (Christie’s) memory of the events in question was affected as a result of the injuries he sustained.”
Veterans Affairs Canada denied Christie disability benefits in July of 2005, concluding that his injuries weren’t “directly connected” with his RCMP service.
Two years later, an entitlement review panel confirmed that decision, finding “that on a balance of probabilities,” Christie “had not approached the youths in his capacity as an RCMP officer,” but “as a concerned citizen.”
Christie appealed again, but in a January 2009 decision the panel looking at his case came to the same conclusion.
The former Mountie asked another appeal panel to reconsider that decision in March 2022. But it dismissed his request in June 2023.
“The reconsideration panel found that there was no evidence that (Christie) approached the youths as a police officer, or identified himself as one, nor was there any evidence to show that (he) perceived the situation as one that required him to intervene in his capacity as a police officer.”
It found Christie’s assault wasn’t directly connected to his service because he “was off-duty and on vacation, while bicycling with his children, and there was no evidence that the RCMP was exercising any control or direction over (him) at the time.”
Christie asked Ngo to review that decision.
He argued the reconsideration panel “was fixated on identifying a criminal offence in progress or whether he identified himself as a police officer,” and it “did not grapple” with his “evidence that as an RCMP officer, he is expected to take appropriate action in certain circumstances even when he is not on duty.”
Christie believed “he had a duty to intercede due to his status as an RCMP officer.”
The reconsideration panel recognized that Christie’s “memory was significantly impaired from the injury and also found an ‘absence of other evidence’ to support his account of the assault.”
It also found “that it was not an error in fact or law that the appeal panel did not rely” on a hazardous occurrence investigation report dated July 26, 2004, “on the basis that it was ‘taken on October 21, 2006, more than two years after the assault.’”
But the reconsideration panel cited the wrong date, Ngo said.
“The report was, in fact, prepared only a few days after the assault during (Christie’s) admission to the hospital. A note in the report mentioned, ‘he was off duty but acting in his capacity as a police officer.’”
That was “a contemporaneous account” of the assault, the judge said.
“I agree with (Christie) that in these circumstances, the report would have been one of the best available pieces of evidence relating to the assault,” Ngo said.
“The decision erroneously discounted the evidentiary value of the report in the mistaken belief that it was completed long after the events it recorded. This is a reviewable error, in my view.”
That’s a “significant and determinative” factual mistake, said the judge, “because the overlying theme in reading the decision is the reconsideration panel’s findings of a lack of witness evidence or testimony related to the assault to substantiate that (Christie) identified criminal offences in the making and that he approached the youths as a police officer. By all accounts, it is acknowledged that (Christie) has no memory of the assault given his injury. As such, any evidence that could assist in describing the events surrounding the assault is important.”
Ngo concluded that the “appropriate remedy is to set aside the reconsideration panel’s decision and remit (Christie’s) claim to a differently constituted panel for redetermination.”
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