Appeals : Confirmed Referee Decisions : #57 - September 16, 2002

D E C I S I O N

According to the wishes of each party, there was no hearing and the undersigned thus proceeded with the analysis of this matter on the basis of the file as
constituted. This request for review does not refer to a matter of eligibility to the compensation program as established under the January 1, 1986 - July 1, 1990
Hepatitis C Settlement Agreement ("Settlement Agreement"). It refers instead to the distinction that must or must not be made regarding the amount to be paid,
depending on whether the death of the infected person occurred before or after January 1, 1999. Let us briefly mention that the Administrator of the Plans ("the
Administrator") accepted the claimant's request for compensation whose amount was set below the claimant's requested amount, on the basis that death had
occurred on December 16, 1996. Therefore, the current matter does not challenge either the existence of the infection or the transfusions received during the Class
Action period.

I proceeded with a close analysis of each party's allegations in the current litigation as well as the wording of the established Settlement Agreement. We must
recognize that this Settlement Agreement establishes in Sections 5.01 and 5.02 a distinction between death cases occurring before or after January 1, 1999.
Without having to restate these two provisions in their entirety for the purpose of this decision, let us only state that compensation amounts payable differ
according to the date of death. I am not at liberty to discuss the merits of such a distinction, since my mandate is strictly limited to the application and
interpretation of this Settlement Agreement. However, I must recognize that, in accepting a compensation relative to a death which occurred before January 1,
1999, the Administrator has made a decision which complies with the wording of the Settlement Agreement.

As for the claimant's argument to the effect that this reference date should be invalid, in virtue of civil law applicable in Quebec, I cannot concur with such a
conclusion. This case is about a Settlement Agreement established further to a Class Action to which the claimant is a party for not having excluded herself from
that group. Consequently, allegations to applicable civil rules as well as to the prescribed deadline could possibly have been submitted to a common law tribunal
in the context of a distinct recourse, but, in my opinion, they do not fall within this arbitration's jurisdiction.

Consequently, based on the preceding, the request for review in this case is rejected and the Administrator's decision is upheld.


Montreal, September 16, 2002,



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Martin Hébert, Referee