- Parties: The applicant was Pauline Milner. The respondent was the Attorney General of Canada.

- Subject Matter: The applicant applied for Canada Pension Plan disability pension benefits in 2013. Service Canada denied the application. The Social Security Tribunal’s General Division (GD) and Appeal Division (AD) refused to overturn the initial decision, which prompted the applicant to file two judicial review applications (A-16-21 and A-178-20). In A-178-20, the applicant challenged the AD’s decision confirming the GD’s earlier decision that she failed to present new material facts that would justify reopening its 2018 determination that she had not become disabled by the end of her minimum qualifying period.

- Ruling: The appeal court ruled in the respondent’s favour and dismissed the judicial review applications without costs. The appeal court held that the applicant’s submissions largely amounted to mere disagreements with the AD’s assessment of the GD’s decision, which was insufficient for a reviewing court to intervene. The reviewing court could only set aside a decision for being unreasonable if it found that the alleged flaws or shortcomings were not merely peripheral to the decision’s merits but instead sufficiently significant to strip it of the requisite degree of justification, intelligibility, and transparency, the appeal court explained.

- Date: The hearing was set on Oct. 24, 2023. The court released its decision on Jan. 5, 2024.

- Venue: This was a federal case before the Federal Court of Appeal.

- Amount: No financial award was specified.