Bestt and Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission

This matter concerned an application by Bestt (the applicant) for review of a decision by the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Commission (the respondent) regarding the amount of fees and allowances payable to a third party, Chromis, for compliance with a summons to produce documents. The dispute centred on what constituted reasonable expenses for this compliance.

The court was required to determine the appropriate method for calculating the reasonable costs incurred by Chromis in producing documents pursuant to a summons. Specifically, the court had to consider whether the fees prescribed by the Workers Compensation (Medical Practitioner Fees) Order 2016 (NSW) were applicable, and how to assess costs for collation, pagination, indexing, and photocopying of the documents, as well as postage.

The court found that the NSW Workers Compensation Act and its associated fee order were not relevant to proceedings before the Tribunal. Instead, the court applied Schedule 3 to the Rules, which governs costs allowable in the Tribunal. The court allowed $55.00 for collation based on an estimated 30 minutes of work at the rate provided in Item 8 of Schedule 3. It disallowed any amount for pagination and indexing as these tasks were not performed. For photocopying, the court determined $0.60 per page inclusive of GST to be a reasonable cost, consistent with the Tribunal's own charges. Finally, the court disallowed any separate amount for postage, finding that Item 20.3 of Schedule 3, which includes postage in the preparation of documents, was applicable.

The Tribunal determined that Chromis' reasonable expenses for complying with the summons were $566.80 inclusive of GST.