DOCTOR’S LAWSUIT MOVES FORWARD
Dr. Brenda Steinnagel claims she was fired for refusing to follow WSIB,
A Hamilton-area physician suing the Workplace Safety and Insurance Board and her former employer for $3.2 million — claiming she was fired when she wouldn’t deliver a medical opinion that suited the WSIB — can proceed with the lawsuit, a Toronto judge ruled last week.
Superior Court Justice Elizabeth Stewart threw out the WSIB’s request to dismiss the lawsuit or to at least strike portions of Dr. Brenda Steinnagel’s statement of claim.
Steinnagel’s former employer, Workplace Health & Cost Solutions, also lost its bid to strike portions of the statement.
“Dr. Steinnagel is pleased with the decision and that her claim can proceed as filed, and we will continue to vigorously pursue compensation for her,” said her lawyer, Mark Polley.
None of the allegations in the statement of claim has been proven in court.
“Obviously, WHCS is disappointed with the ruling and continues to re- gard Dr. Steinnagel’s case as having no merit,” WHCS lawyer Greg McGinnis told the Star. A WSIB spokeswoman said: “We maintain that there is no truth to Dr. Steinnagel’s allegations, we deny acting wrongfully in any way and we will continue to defend the lawsuit.”
Steinnagel is alleging that she was terminated last year after the WSIB repeatedly demanded that her employer, Vaughan-based WHCS, change the medical opinion she wrote on hospital security guard Shawn McCabe.
McCabe was claiming benefits after suffering head injuries while trying to restrain a patient at Rouge Valley Centenary in Scarborough.
McCabe told the Star last year he didn’t recognize himself after he was injured.
He would cry for no reason and became increasingly irritable, while still trying to do his job on a modified work plan.
“I was suffering from this profound sense of sadness,” he said.
Steinnagel had concluded in late 2014 that McCabe’s emotional issues could be related to his workplace accident, according to the statement of claim.
Within two weeks of delivering her opinion, she alleges the WSIB requested clarification.
After further review, which included speaking with McCabe’s family doctor, Steinnagel says she reached the same result in her medical opinion, but “the WSIB continued to resist her conclusion,” according to the statement, filed in Toronto Superior Court in July. “The defendants WSIB and WHCS tried to force Dr. Steinnagel to participate in a fraud upon the public,” the statement alleges.
She alleged she was fired after her employer provided a different opinion to the WSIB, “thereby providing WSIB with the false and fraudulent opinion it needed to deny the hospital worker his benefits,” according to her statement of claim.
The defendants argued in court that the allegations of fraud upon the public “are incapable of being proven, are scandalous and ought to be struck,” and further argued that Steinnagel’s statement lacks the necessary elements to prove fraud and conspiracy. The judge disagreed. “It is not plain and obvious that the causes of action pleaded have no chance of success such that they should be struck,” Stewart wrote.