Disability Pension Eligibility Denied Due to Loss of Severe Disability

Citation: MM  v  [NAME] , 2026  SST  285 Social Security Tribunal of Canada General Division – Income Security Section Decision Appellant: [redacted] Respondent: [redacted] Decision under appeal: [NAME] reconsideration decision dated May 23, 2025 (issued by Service Canada) Tribunal member: [NAME] of hearing: In Writing Decision date: June 15, 2026 File number: GP-25-1311 On this page Decision Overview What I have to decide Matters I have to consider first Reasons for my decision The Appellant’s other arguments Conclusion Decision [ 1 ] The appeal is dismissed. [ 2 ] The Appellant, M. M., stopped being disabled as of December 2018. She was only eligible for a [NAME] ( [NAME] ) disability pension when she was disabled. The disability pension payments that she got when she wasn’t disabled are considered an overpayment that is owed to the [NAME] (Minister). [ 3 ] This decision explains why I am dismissing the appeal. Overview [ 4 ] The Appellant was granted a [NAME] disability benefit with the date of onset of September 2001. This is when she had last worked. Her [NAME] disability pension started January 2002. Footnote 1 [ 5 ] On August 4, 2022, the [NAME] (Minister) decided that the Appellant had stopped being disabled as of April 2019. The Minister stopped paying her a disability pension. The Minister also required her to pay back the payments that she got from May 2019 to June 2022. The Minister told her that the amount owing was $27,766.98. Footnote 2 [ 6 ] The Appellant appealed the Minister’s decision to the Social Security Tribunal’s General Division. [ 7 ] The Appellant says that she is still disabled from working. She says that she works with her partner helping with his business. She says that it is a compassionate form of employment, and she doesn’t work most of the time because of her medical conditions. She says that she received special allowances that went above and beyond what any workplace would tolerate from an employee. Footnote 3 [ 8 ] The Minister says that the evidence supports that the Appellant stopped being disabled as of April 2019. The Minister says that her earnings support that she regained the capacity to work, and was no longer severely disabled. The Minister allowed for a three-month work trial spanning February, March, and April 2019. Footnote 4 What I have to decide [ 9 ] I have to decide whether the Appellant stopped being disabled. If she stopped being disabled, then I also have to decide when. [ 10 ] According to the law, an appellant stops being disabled when one of two things happens: Their disability stops being severe. Their disability stops being prolonged. [ 11 ] The [NAME] defines “severe” and “prolonged”. A disability is severe if it makes an appellant incapable regularly of pursuing any substantially gainful occupation . Footnote 5 A disability is prolonged if it is likely to be long continued and of indefinite duration, or is likely to result in death. Footnote 6 [ 12 ] When the Minister stops paying a person a disability pension, the Minister has to prove that the person stopped being disabled on a balance of probabilities. The Minister must show that it is more likely than not the Appellant stopped being disabled. Footnote 7 [ 13 ] To decide whether the Appellant stopped being disabled, I have to look at the Minister’s evidence supporting its decision that the Appellant can work. If the Appellant is capable regularly of doing some kind of work that she could earn a living from, then she isn’t entitled to a disability pension. [ 14 ] If I decide that the Appellant stopped being disabled, then she isn’t eligible for a disability pension anymore. The Minister may also require her to pay back any payments she got when she wasn’t disabled. Matters I have to consider first [ 15 ] The Appellant asked for a hearing in writing. I needed more information to fairly decide this matter, so I wrote a letter to the Appellant asking work related questions. Footnote 8 [ 16 ] I accepted the Appellant’s response and the Minister’s reply. Footnote 9 [ 17 ] The Tribunal didn’t accept late evidence from the Appellant. The Tribunal wrote her letters explaining this. The late documents weren’t relevant to the issues under appeal. Footnote 10 Reasons for my decision [ 18 ] I find that the Appellant stopped being disabled as of December 2018. This is when her disability stopped being severe. Was the Appellant’s disability severe? [ 19 ] The Appellant’s disability stopped being severe as of December 2018. I reached this finding by considering several factors. I explain these factors below. The Appellant’s functional limitations affected her ability to work [ 20 ] The Appellant has: chronic pain in her back congenital hip dysplasia post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) [ 21 ] But I can’t focus on the Appellant’s diagnoses. Footnote 11 Instead, I have to focus on whether she has functional limitations that got in the way of her earning a living. Footnote 12 When I do this, I have to look at all of her medical conditions (not just the main one) and think about how they affected her ability to work. Footnote 13 [ 22 ] I find that the Appellant still had functional limitations that affected her ability to work as of the hearing date. My findings about the Appellant’s functional limitations [ 23 ] I find that the Appellant continues to have functional limitations from back pain. Some medical evidence from 2021 was available. In April 2021, her doctor charted that she had back pain for one week. She also had severe back pain in February 2021. When she had flare ups of back pain it was worse with sitting, standing, and walking. She also reported numbness and tingling in her hands and fingers and headaches. Footnote 14 [ 24 ] The available recent medical evidence doesn’t mention limitations from depression or PTSD. This suggests that her limitations from these conditions have improved. [ 25 ] The file didn’t contain a completed medical reassessment form. Footnote 15 The medical reassessment form provides information on the current diagnosis, treatment, prognosis, and limitations. Without this information, my decision has to be based on the information available in the file. [ 26 ] I relied on the documented earnings as objective evidence of her functional capacity during the period in question. The Appellant’s arguments on her work capacity [ 27 ] The Appellant says that she worked at her partner’s business since 2019. She was assigned full-time hours, earning $20 per hour. She describes this as a compassionate means of employment. She sold vehicles, completed bills of sale, and did bookkeeping. Her hours varied based on appointments and her health. She says that she missed more than half of her shifts, but her attendance was never recorded. She didn’t have formal accommodations. She needed to use the bathroom every two hours. She was able to take her dog with her to work. She doesn’t think she could work if she couldn’t take her dog with her. Footnote 16 [ 28 ] The Appellant says that she lost a lot of work time due to illness. She says that several times throughout the year she missed work because of back pain, arthritis, and poor mobility. She says that she had incontinence and that her daily reminders of PTSD get in the way of her tolerating everyday job demands. Recently her anxiety was high. Footnote 17 [ 29 ] The Minister argues that the work evidence shows that the Appellant demonstrated the capacity for substantially gainful work as of the end of April 2019. The Minister argues that she didn’t have [NAME]. Footnote 18 Did the Appellant have [NAME]? [ 30 ] If an appellant had [NAME], then it could mean that she was not actually capable of pursuing a substantially gainful occupation, despite what her income shows. [ 31 ] In [NAME] , the Federal Court of Appeal held that a finding of benevolence depends on specific relevant criteria. [NAME] is one who will change the working conditions and lower the expectation of an employee who has limitations. [NAME] expects significantly less from the disabled employee than from other employees. [NAME] accepts that the employee can’t work at a competitive level. Footnote 19 [ 32 ] The Tribunal must decide whether accommodations go beyond what is required of an employer in the competitive marketplace. The Tribunal should ask the following questions: Footnote 20 Was the work productive? Was the employer satisfied with the appellant’s work performance? Were the job expectations considerably less than what was expected from other employees? Did the appellant receive accommodations that went beyond what was required of an employer in a competitive marketplace? Did the employer experience hardship as a result of those accommodations? [ 33 ] I asked the Appellant to provide information on these areas in writing. Footnote 21 The Appellant didn’t have [NAME] [ 34 ] The Appellant doesn’t fulfil the [NAME] factors. This means that she falls short of the legal criteria to establish [NAME]. [ 35 ] There is the presumption that an employer is getting something like fair value in return for the money paid to employees. In this case, the Appellant did not displace this presumption. [ 36 ] I decided to assign greater weight to the available documentation. I considered her arguments. Yet no independent evidence substantiated all or any part of her claims of [NAME]. The [NAME] criteria [ 37 ] The Appellant’s work was likely productive . She worked for the company for over five years. She was likely contributing to the business and performed meaningful roles that were necessary to its operation. Her work activity wasn’t merely symbolic. [ 38 ] The Appellant’s performance was likely satisfactory . She indicated this in her statements. Footnote 22 The evidence doesn’t support that her work duties were reduced or changed over time due to errors, negligence, or other mistakes. [ 39 ] The Appellant wasn’t subject to significantly lower expectations . I accept that working for her partner’s business would allow for more leniency than would be given to another employee. But that is largely because of her relationship to the employer, not because of her disabilities. [ 40 ] I don’t have any independent confirmation of the Appellant’s absenteeism. Her attendance was never recorded. Footnote 23 Even then, the absences need to be connected to her disabilities to be relevant. [ 41 ] The Appellant didn’t have accommodations . While she describes needing a bathroom break every two hours and bringing a pet to work, these actions do not meet the standard of a formal workplace accommodation. These appear to be personal choices rather than accommodations. [ 42 ] Accommodations are adjustments or modifications to the workplace that enable individuals with disabilities to perform their tasks. The accommodation process involves documented medical needs, communicating with the employer, and then agreed-upon workplace adjustments. [ 43 ] The Appellant’s accommodations didn’t cause her employer hardship . She argues that her employer experienced hardship because he made payroll and tax deductions by paying her to assist her with her financial struggles. Footnote 24 [ 44 ] What the Appellant described isn’t accommodation-based hardship. What she described was a normal employer process of paying staff on the books. My findings about the Appellant’s ability to work [ 45 ] The Minister’s arguments were persuasive in light of the Appellant’s earnings, her functional limitations, and available medical evidence. [ 46 ] I find that the Appellant could work in the real world as of January 2019, the beginning of the year in which she started to make substantially gainful earnings. That is when her disability stopped being severe. [ 47 ] I relied on the available evidence of the Appellant’s full year earnings, starting from January 2019. I picked the beginning of the year as the evidence from the Appellant didn’t have a specific month of her return to work. [ 48 ] I considered her stated salary wage of $20.00 and her earnings of $46,482 for 2019. Footnote 25 If she worked full-time at her hourly wage, she would have earned approximately this amount. [ 49 ] The Appellant had substantially gainful earnings from 2019 to 2024. Footnote 26 She earned enough to support a living. She earned between $25,594 to $51,298 working for the same employer. Footnote 27 Her earnings were consistently above the maximum she could have received on a [NAME] disability pension. [ 50 ] Despite her back pain, PTSD symptoms and other limitations, I am satisfied that she was regularly capable of doing substantially gainful work. She remained working a reasonably paying job for several years. [ 51 ] The legislation doesn’t make an allowance for how difficult an appellant finds their job or how tired they are after coming home from work. The legislation only considers whether an appellant is able to perform the job on a sustained basis and whether that job earns them some kind of living. I can’t grant a three-month work trial [ 52 ] I recognize that the Minister allowed for a three-month paid return to work trial. This was based on the Minister’s policy. There is no basis in the law to allow a work trial, nor of a certain length. I am required to follow the law. [ 53 ] The Appellant’s return to work was successful. The income she made in 2019 showed that she could earn a living, despite her limitations. The Appellant could work in the real world [ 54 ] When I am deciding whether the Appellant could work, I generally have to consider factors like her: age level of education language abilities work and life experience Footnote 28 [ 55 ] I don’t have to consider the Appellant’s personal factors in this case because the Appellant has already shown that she could work in the real world. The Appellant’s other arguments [ 56 ] It is unfortunate that the Appellant must return several years of benefits. However, she received those benefits after she ceased to be disabled. [ 57 ] The Appellant says that she didn’t receive any communication about a requirement to tell the Minister about a return to work. She says that she thought filing her taxes would trigger the Minister to be aware that she had returned to work. Footnote 29 [ 58 ] The Appellant suggests that the Minister should have realized sooner that she was working. She doesn’t think it was her responsibility to update the Minister. But the law says it is an appellant’s responsibility to update the Minister right away. Footnote 30 [ 59 ] The Minister gave evidence of how it told the Appellant to update the Minister on a return to work. Footnote 31 Even if the Minister hadn’t done this or the Appellant didn’t understand her responsibilities, this doesn’t change the law. [ 60 ] The Minister had the right to investigate whether the Appellant regained her ability to work. The Minister also has the right to terminate benefits once it decides that a disability is no longer severe and prolonged. [ 61 ] The Appellant also argues that the Minister used an old address for her in Geraldton to send correspondence into May 2022. Footnote 32 [ 62 ] This argument doesn’t advance her case for the cessation of [NAME] disability benefits. This matter isn’t under appeal. [ 63 ] Lastly, the Tribunal doesn’t how the power to forgive an overpayment. Footnote 33 Conclusion [ 64 ] The Minister has proven that the Appellant stopped being disabled as of December 2018. She was no longer entitled to a [NAME] disability pension at that point. [ 65 ] This means the appeal is dismissed. Footnotes Footnote 1 See GD2-99 to 100. Return to footnote 1 referrer Footnote 2 See GD2-7 to 9, 26, and 44. Return to footnote 2 referrer Footnote 3 See GD2-454 to 455, GD9, and GD15. Return to footnote 3 referrer Footnote 4 See GD2-44. Return to footnote 4 referrer Footnote 5 Section 42(2)(a) of the [NAME] gives this definition of severe disability. Section 68.1 of the [NAME] says a job is “substantially gainful” if it pays a salary or wages equal to or greater than the maximum annual amount a person could receive as a disability pension. Return to footnote 5 referrer Footnote 6 Section 42(2)(a) of the [NAME] gives this definition of prolonged disability. Return to footnote 6 referrer Footnote 7 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2014  FCA  187. Return to footnote 7 referrer Footnote 8 See GD14. Return to footnote 8 referrer Footnote 9 See GD15 and GD19. Return to footnote 9 referrer Footnote 10 See GD11, GD12, GD16, GD17, GD18. Also see the letters of May 11, 2026, and May 13, 2026. Return to footnote 10 referrer Footnote 11 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2013  FCA  81. Return to footnote 11 referrer Footnote 12 [NAME]  v  Canada ([NAME]) , 2008  FCA  33. Return to footnote 12 referrer Footnote 13 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2011  FCA  47. Return to footnote 13 referrer Footnote 14 See GD2-436 to 449. Return to footnote 14 referrer Footnote 15 See GD2-406 and 453. Return to footnote 15 referrer Footnote 16 See GD2-454 to 455 and GD15. Return to footnote 16 referrer Footnote 17 See GD2-454 to 455. Return to footnote 17 referrer Footnote 18 See GD19. Return to footnote 18 referrer Footnote 19 This is explained in  [NAME]   v   Canada (Attorney General) , 2014  FCA  187. Return to footnote 19 referrer Footnote 20 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2014  FCA  187 and  Canada (Attorney General)  v  [NAME] , 2023  FCA  204. Return to footnote 20 referrer Footnote 21 See GD18. Return to footnote 21 referrer Footnote 22 Swee GD15-1 to 2. Return to footnote 22 referrer Footnote 23 See GD15-2. Return to footnote 23 referrer Footnote 24 See GD15-1. Return to footnote 24 referrer Footnote 25 See GD6-11. Return to footnote 25 referrer Footnote 26 See section 68.1 of the [NAME]. Return to footnote 26 referrer Footnote 27 See GD6-11. Return to footnote 27 referrer Footnote 28 [NAME]  v  Canada (Attorney General) , 2001  FCA  248. Return to footnote 28 referrer Footnote 29 See GD1-1, GD2-434, and GD9. Return to footnote 29 referrer Footnote 30 See section 70.1 of the [NAME] . Return to footnote 30 referrer Footnote 31 See GD2-44 to 45 and 161. Also see GD6-12. Return to footnote 31 referrer Footnote 32 See GD2-21 and GD9-1. Also see GD2-43 to 45. Return to footnote 32 referrer Footnote 33 See sections 81 and 82 of the  [NAME] . Return to footnote 33 referrer