Hughes v Australian Postal Corporation

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Hughes v Australian Postal Corporation [2002] FCA 1645

DAVID HUGHES v AUSTRALIAN POSTAL CORPORATION

N1054 OF 2002

MADGWICK J
10 DECEMBER 2002
SYDNEY

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY	N1054 of 2002

BETWEEN:	DAVID HUGHES APPLICANT
AND:	AUSTRALIAN POSTAL CORPORATION RESPONDENT
JUDGE:	MADGWICK J
DATE OF ORDER:	10 DECEMBER 2002
WHERE MADE:	SYDNEY

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.The decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal be set aside.

2.The matter be remitted to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, as previously constituted, for reconsideration in accordance with these reasons for judgment.

3.The respondent is to pay the applicant’s costs of the appeal to this Court.

Note:    Settlement and entry of orders is dealt with in Order 36 of the Federal Court Rules.

IN THE FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA
NEW SOUTH WALES DISTRICT REGISTRY	N1054 of 2002

BETWEEN:	DAVID HUGHES APPLICANT
AND:	AUSTRALIAN POSTAL CORPORATION RESPONDENT

JUDGE:	MADGWICK J
DATE:	10 DECEMBER 2002
PLACE:	SYDNEY

REASONS FOR JUDGMENT
(revised from transcript)

HIS HONOUR:

1. This is an appeal from a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (“the AAT”) made on 6 September 2002 affirming the decisions of the Australian Postal Corporation dated 25 February 2000 and 23 May 2001 in relation to the applicant’s claims for compensation under the Safety, Rehabilitation & Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) (“the Act”). 

2. The applicant was an employee of the respondent at its Silverwater Delivery Centre and at the relevant time it was his job to remove mail from bins, unload large letters from bags into bins and then sort the letters into pigeon holes for postal delivery officers to collect them for ultimate delivery to their addressees.  On 3 January 2000 the applicant started work at about nine o’clock and some time later, perhaps around midnight, he was found on the floor after a witness had heard a noise.  The applicant’s claim was that he slipped “on something on the floor”, fell and was injured in that fall. 

3. He was taken by ambulance to Auburn Hospital and it is common ground that he was diagnosed as having sustained a fractured skull.  Mr Hughes had in fact had a fractured skull many years earlier and it seems that the doctor on duty at the hospital misread an x-ray.  The applicant seems to have been something of an unreliable witness, before the AAT, having apparently contradicted himself as to some matters and having said things that were contradicted by more contemporaneous records that apparently appealed to the relevant member of the AAT.

4. The proceedings, it is fair to say, had their genesis in somewhat messy paperwork.  For an employee such as the applicant, the Act prescribed in s 14 that:

   “Subject to the Part, Comcare is liable to pay compensation in accordance with this Act in respect of an injury suffered by an employee if the injury results in death, incapacity for work, or impairment.”

   Section 16 adds a liability in Comcare to pay compensation in relation to reasonable medical treatment whether…