RCMP officer denies damages for injuries, wins court ruling

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It was wrong to deny a former Mountie compensation for a head injury he suffered while trying to break up a raucous drinking party while on vacation because it was not directly related to his RCMP service, even though a report stated that connection was clear at the time, according to a ruling by the Federal Court.

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A group of young men drinking in a Calgary park knocked down Frederick Thompson Christie and “hit him more than 50 times,” rendering him unconscious, after he ordered them to clean up their mess in July 2004, according to reports Judge 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 appeals board denied Christie’s request for reconsideration.

Christie, an RCMP officer from April 1982 to November 2013, challenged that decision on the grounds that the review panel “unreasonably concluded that his injury did not arise out of or was not directly related to his RCMP service.”

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NGO, which granted Christie’s request for judicial review, said the former Mountie “has demonstrated that the decision is unreasonable. The Reconsideration Panel misunderstood evidence on a central issue.”

While on vacation, on July 23, 2004, Christie witnessed a group of young men “getting drunk and causing a disturbance in a park,” Ngo said.

“Although (Christie) was not in uniform at the time, he considered it his duty as an off-duty police officer to intervene,” the judge said.

Christie, who was cycling with his children, sent his children home, “and then requested that the group of young men clean up their mess and stop the disruption,” Ngo said.

“The young men refused, at which point Christie told them he would contact the Calgary Police Service. Two of the young men then attacked Christie, knocking him to the ground, hitting him more than 50 times and rendering him unconscious.”

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Christie ended up in a hospital trauma unit for six days with head injuries. He “was ultimately diagnosed with a ‘closed head injury, cerebral contusion (and) facial nerve palsy,’ Ngo wrote in her Oct. 29 decision.

He “experienced significant and ongoing problems” because of his injuries, she said.

Christie “wasn’t able to return to work until late 2004, when he could only work half days in the office, a maximum of three to four days a week.”

He “suffered from post-concussion, memory loss and cognitive and perceived neurological deficits,” the judge said. “It is also clear that (Christie’s) memory of the events in question was impaired as a result of the injuries he suffered.”

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Veterans Affairs Canada denied Christie disability benefits in July 2005, concluding that his injuries were not “directly related” to his RCMP service.

Two years later, a review panel upheld that decision, concluding “that on the balance of probabilities, Christie had “not approached the youth in his capacity as an RCMP officer,” but “as a concerned citizen.”

Christie appealed again, but in a January 2009 decision, the panel that considered his case came to the same conclusion.

The former Mountie asked another appeals panel to reconsider that decision in March 2022. But it denied his request in June 2023.

“The reconsideration panel found that there was no evidence that (Christie) approached the youth as a police officer, or identified himself as a police officer, nor was there any evidence to show that (he) viewed the situation as one that required him to intervene. his capacity as a police officer.”

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It was determined that Christie’s attack was not directly related to his duty because he was “off duty and on vacation, cycling with his children, and there was no evidence that the RCMP had any control or direction over (him) exercised. .”

Christie asked Ngo to reconsider that decision.

He argued that the review panel was “fixated on identifying an offense in progress or him identifying himself as a police officer,” and that it “did not grapple” with his “evidence that as an RCMP officer he is expected to takes appropriate action’. under certain circumstances, even when he is off duty.”

Christie believed “he had a duty to intervene due to his status as an RCMP officer.”

The reconsideration panel acknowledged that Christie’s “memory was significantly impaired by the injury and also found an ‘absence of other evidence’ to support his account of the attack.”

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It also found “that there was no error of fact or law on which the appeal panel failed to rely” on a dangerous occurrences investigation report dated July 26, 2004, “on the basis that it was ‘prepared on October 21, 2006’, more than two years after the attack. ”

But the reconsideration panel cited the wrong date, Ngo said.

“The report was actually prepared just a few days after the attack during (Christie’s) hospitalization. A note in the report said: ‘He was off duty but was acting in his capacity as a police officer.’

That was “a contemporaneous account” of the attack, the judge said.

“I agree with Christie that under the circumstances the report would have been one of the best available pieces of evidence relating to the attack,” Ngo said.

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“The decision wrongly ignored the evidentiary value of the report, under the mistaken belief that it was completed long after the events it recorded. In my opinion, this is a verifiable error.”

That is a “significant and decisive” factual error, the judge said, “because the overarching theme in reading the decision is the reconsideration panel’s findings of a lack of witness evidence or testimony related to the attack to substantiate that (Christie ) has identified criminal offenses in the making and that he approached the young people as a police officer. By all accounts it is recognized that (Christie) has no memory of the attack given his injury. As such, any evidence that can help describe the events surrounding the attack is important.”

Ngo concluded that the “appropriate remedy is to set aside the decision of the reconsideration panel and transfer (Christie’s) claim to a reconstituted panel for reconsideration.”

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