Case information

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Case summaries are prepared by the Office of the Registrar of the Supreme Court of Canada (Law Branch). Please note that summaries are not provided to the Judges of the Court. They are placed on the Court file and website for information purposes only.

Insurance - Group insurance - Benefits - Long term disability benefits - Pensions - Canada Pension Plan - Child of disabled contributor benefit - Whether insurer was entitled by the terms of the policies to deduct the amounts that the insureds received from the Canada Pension Plan for their children from the disability benefits payable to them - How the child benefit ought to be interpreted and treated - Whether the decision of the Court of Appeal fundamentally reconfigures the treatment to be afforded to these benefits and permits third parties to appropriate the benefit from intended child beneficiaries.

The Applicants, Ruffolo and Lepage, are two unrelated, totally disabled adults with minor children who were selected as proposed representative plaintiffs and received financial support from the Law Foundation in a case concerning the insurance industry. Both Applicants were covered under group insurance policies with the Respondent, Sun Life Assurance Company of Canada (“Sun Life”), which provided them with long-term disability (“LTD”) benefits. They were also entitled to Canada Pension Plan (“CPP”) disability benefits for themselves and their dependent children. In accordance with the terms of the insurance policies with their former employers, Sun Life deducted from the LTD benefit payable to each Applicant the amount of benefits each received for their dependants under the CPP. Ruffolo was entitled to $2,222.33 in monthly long-term disability benefits. Sun Life offset its payments to him by the amounts of his primary CPP benefit of $682.66 per month and his secondary benefit of $226.28 per month for his two dependent children. Lepage received her full entitlement from Sun Life because she had failed to apply for her CPP benefits. Eventually, she received a large lump sum for her retroactive CPP award but did not remit this to Sun Life, as requested. As a result, Sun Life discontinued LTD payments to her until it had been reimbursed for the amount it had been entitled to offset. Ruffolo and Lepage sought a declaration that Sun Life was prohibited from deducting CPP child benefits from the LTD payments pursuant to its group disability insurance policies, and damages. Sun Life counterclaimed against Lepage to recover the overpayment of long-term disability payments. In a pre-trial agreement, the case proceeded as a trial of the individual claims of Ruffolo and Lepage, with Sun Life agreeing that if the plaintiffs were successful, it would be bound by the result with respect to other insureds with identical policy language.