Tea Time Gone Wrong: Spilled Tea In Car Not An Automobile Accident

• Published date: 27 May 2020
• Author: Ms Carol-Anne Wyseman
• Subject Matter: Insurance, Litigation, Mediation & Arbitration, Insurance Laws and Products, Trials & Appeals & Compensation
• Law Firm: Rogers Partners LLP

In M.P. v. Allstate Insurance Company of Canada,¹ a recently released preliminary issue decision of the Licence Appeal Tribunal (the "LAT"), the LAT considered the definition of "accident" in s. 3(1) of the Statutory Accident Benefits Schedule - Effective September 1, 2010 (the "SABS").

Subsection 3(1) of the SABS defines "accident" as follows:

"accident" means an incident in which the use or operation of an automobile directly causes an impairment or directly causes damage to any prescription eyewear, denture, hearing aid, prosthesis or other medical or dental device

Facts

The applicant claimed to have been involved in an automobile accident in March 2017. She went to a fast food restaurant drive-through and purchased a cup of tea. The beverage was handed to her in a tray. She placed the tray on her passenger seat and drove off until she came to a red traffic light and stopped.

After stopping, she noticed the lid was not properly on the cup of hot tea. She stated that she lifted the cup out of the tray and placed it in front of her as she wanted to secure the lid before placing it in the cupholder. She held the cup with her left hand and tried to secure the lid by pressing down on it with her right hand. The tea then spilled on her, causing her injury. She made a claim for accident benefits.

Insurer's Arguments

The insurer denied that the incident was an "accident", based on the intervening act of the applicant being scalded by a hot cup of tea from the fast food restaurant.

The insurer argued that the negligence of the fast food restaurant's employee in not securing the lid and the applicant's attempt to secure the lid were what caused the tea to spill on her. It argued that these were independent intervening acts which caused her injuries, not the use or operation of a motor vehicle.

Applicant's Arguments

The applicant, on the other hand, submitted that her tea spilled on her while she was operating her vehicle, and that there was no intervening act. She had wanted to put the tea from the tray to her cupholder when it spilled on her. She submitted that having a beverage in a vehicle and using a cupholder are part of the ordinary course of using a vehicle.

The applicant relied on the decision of Dittmann v. Aviva Insurance Company,² in which the plaintiff spilled hot coffee on her lap while transferring it from a drive-through window into her vehicle cupholder. The plaintiff applied for accident benefits. Her insurer argued that she was not involved...