Leach v Comcare

Case [2019] FCA 1698

FEDERAL COURT OF AUSTRALIA

Leach v Comcare [2019] FCA 1698

Appeal from: Leach v Comcare [2018] AATA 1632
File number: QUD 464 of 2018
Judge: REEVES J
Date of judgment: 16 October 2019
Catchwords: WORKERS’ COMPENSATION – appeal of a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (the Tribunal) with respect to the operation of s 53(3)(c) of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) (SRC Act) – where the Tribunal found that the appellant had not advised Comcare of his injury “as soon as practicable” after becoming aware of said injury – where the Tribunal was not satisfied that the appellant’s failure to comply with s 53 of the SRC Act was due to ignorance within the meaning of s 53(3)(c) – whether the Tribunal’s conclusion about the plausibility of the appellant being aware of a Comcare claim was legally unreasonable – whether the Tribunal complied with its statutory obligations to provide reasons for its conclusion – where the appellant sought to rely on two new affidavits in this appeal – appeal dismissed
Legislation:

Administrative Appeals Tribunal Act 1975 (Cth)

Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth)

Cases cited:

Chugg v Pacific Dunlop Limited (1990) 170 CLR 249

Haritos v Federal Commissioner of Taxation (2015) 233 FCR 315; [2015] FCAFC 92

Leach v Comcare [2018] AATA 1632

Leach v Ross [2013] QSC 333

Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Eden (2016) 240 FCR 158; [2016] FCAFC 28

Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang (1996) 185 CLR 259

Date of hearing: 16 July 2019
Registry: Queensland
Division: General Division
National Practice Area: Employment & Industrial Relations
Category: Catchwords
Number of paragraphs: 33
Counsel for the Appellant: The Appellant appeared in person
Counsel for the Respondent: Ms K Slack
Solicitor for the Respondent: Australian Government Solicitor

ORDERS

QUD 464 of 2018
BETWEEN:

CRAIG LEACH

Appellant
AND:

COMCARE

Respondent

JUDGE:

REEVES J

DATE OF ORDER:

16 OCTOBER 2019

THE COURT ORDERS THAT:

1.The appellant’s notice of appeal filed 9 July 2018 is dismissed.

2.The appellant is to pay the respondent’s costs of and incidental to the appeal to be taxed failing agreement.

Note:   Entry of orders is dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.


REASONS FOR JUDGMENT

REEVES J:

INTRODUCTION

  1. Section 53(1)(a) of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) (the SRC Act) prevents an employee from pursuing a claim in respect of an injury under that Act unless he or she has given notice in writing of that injury “as soon as practicable after the employee becomes aware of the injury”. However, s 53(3) provides a number of exceptions to an employee’s failure to comply with this notice requirement as follows:

    (3)      Where:

    (a)a notice purporting to be a notice referred to in this section has been given to the relevant authority;

    (b)the notice, as regards the time of giving the notice or otherwise, failed to comply with the requirements of this section; and

    (c)the relevant authority would…

Continue reading Leach v Comcare

Sign in free to access the full text

Details
AGLC
Leach v Comcare [2019] FCA 1698
Case
[2019] FCA 1698
Decision Date

CaseChat Overview and Summary

The case of Leach v Comcare involved an appeal against a decision of the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (the Tribunal). The appellant, Mr Leach, contested the Tribunal's finding that he had not reported his injury to Comcare "as soon as practicable" after becoming aware of it. The Tribunal determined that Mr Leach's failure to comply with section 53 of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) (SRC Act) was not due to ignorance within the meaning of section 53(3)(c) of the SRC Act. The legal issues in the appeal centred on whether the Tribunal's conclusion about Mr Leach's awareness of his Comcare claim was legally unreasonable, and if the Tribunal had adequately complied with its statutory obligations to provide reasons for its decision.

The court examined the principles of legal unreasonableness, drawing on the decision in Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Eden. It noted that the Tribunal's decision-making process must be lawful, and that the court's role was supervisory rather than a merits-based review. The court found that the Tribunal's decision was within its area of decisional freedom and was therefore legally reasonable. The reasons provided by the Tribunal were considered adequate and provided an evident and intelligible justification for its conclusion.

As a result of this analysis, the court dismissed Mr Leach's appeal. The appeal was found to have no merit, and the court held that the Tribunal's decision was not legally unreasonable. The final orders were that Mr Leach's notice of appeal filed on 9 July 2018 was dismissed, and that he was to pay the respondent's costs of and incidental to the appeal to be taxed failing agreement.

Orders

Orders of the court

1. The appellant’s notice of appeal filed 9 July 2018 is dismissed.

2. The appellant is to pay the respondent’s costs of and incidental to the appeal to be taxed failing agreement.

Note: Entry of orders is dealt with in Rule 39.32 of the Federal Court Rules 2011.

Background

Background to the litigation

Full text does not contain this section.

Evidence

Evidence Before The Court

Full text does not contain this section.

Decision

Reasons for decision

As for question 2, I do not consider it raises a question of law at all. Instead, it seeks to quibble with the commonplace procedural rulings made by the Tribunal in conducting the hearing before it, none of which involved any lack of procedural fairness, or constituted a question of law such that they could fall for consideration in this appeal.CONCLUSION For these reasons, none of Mr Leach’s questions of law has any merit. His appeal against the Tribunal’s decision must therefore be dismissed with costs. The orders will be:1. The appellant’s notice of appeal filed 9 July 2018 is dismissed.2. The appellant is to pay the respondent’s costs of and incidental to the appeal to be taxed failing agreement.

Ratio Decidendi

Legal Principle Established

In Minister for Immigration and Border Protection v Eden (2016) 240 FCR 158; [2016] FCAFC 28 (Eden), the Full Court (Allsop CJ, Griffiths and Wigney JJ) set out the following seven point summary of the principles bearing on the concept of legal unreasonableness (at [58]–[60] and [62]–[65]). Points 2 and 6 of this summary have particular resonance in this matter: 58First, the concept of legal unreasonableness concerns the lawful exercise of power. Legal reasonableness, or an absence of legal unreasonableness, is an essential element in the lawfulness of decision-making: Li at [26] and [29] (French CJ), [63] (Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ) and [88] (Gageler J); Singh at [43]; Stretton at [4] (Allsop CJ) and [53] (Griffiths J).59Second, the Court’s task in determining whether a decision is vitiated for legal unreasonableness is strictly supervisory (Li at [66]). It does not involve the Court reviewing the merits of the decision under the guise of an evaluation of the decision’s reasonableness, or the Court substituting its own view as to how the decision should be exercised for that of the decision-maker: Li at [66] (Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ); Stretton at [12] (Allsop CJ) and [58] (Griffiths J); see also Plaintiff M64/2015 v Minister for Immigration and Border Protection (2015) 90 ALJR 197 at [23]. Nor does it involve the Court remaking the decision according to its own view of reasonableness: Stretton at [8] (Allsop CJ).60Third, there are two contexts in which the concept of legal unreasonableness may be employed. The first involves a conclusion after the identification of a recognised species of jurisdictional error in the decision-making process, such as failing to have regard to a mandatory consideration, or having regard to an irrelevant consideration. The second involves an “outcome focused” conclusion without any specific jurisdictional error being identified: Li at [27]-[28] (French CJ), [72] (Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ); Singh at [44]; Stretton at [6] (Allsop CJ).…62Fourth, in assessing whether a particular outcome is unreasonable, it is necessary to bear in mind that within the boundaries of power there is an area of “decisional freedom” within which a decision-maker has a genuinely free discretion: Li at [29] (French CJ), [66] (Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ). Within that area, reasonable minds might differ as to the correct decision or outcome, but any decision or outcome within that area is within the bounds of legal reasonableness: Li at [66] (Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ); Stretton at [7] (Allsop CJ). Such a decision falls within the range of possible lawful outcomes of the exercise of the power: Li at [105] (Gageler J); Stretton at [11] (Allsop CJ).63Fifth, in order to identify or define the width and boundaries of this area of decisional freedom and the bounds of legal reasonableness, it is necessary to construe the relevant statute: Li at [24] (French CJ), [67]-[67] (Hayne, Kiefel and Bell JJ); Stretton at [55] and [62] (Griffiths J). The task of determining whether a decision is legally reasonable or unreasonable involves the evaluation of the nature and quality of the decision by reference to the subject matter, scope and purpose of the relevant statutory power, together with the attendant principles and values of the common law concerning reasonableness in decision-making: Stretton at [7] and [11] (Allsop CJ). The evaluation is also likely to be fact dependant and to require careful attention to the evidence: Singh at [42].64Sixth, where reasons for the decision are available, the reasons are likely to provide the focus for the evaluation of whether the decision is legally unreasonable: Singh at [45]-[47]. Where the reasons provide an evident and intelligible justification for the decision, it is unlikely that the decision could be considered to be legally unreasonable: Singh at [47] …65Seventh, and perhaps most importantly, the evaluation of whether a decision is legally unreasonable should not be approached by way of the application of particular definitions, fixed formulae, categorisations or verbal descriptions. The concept of legal unreasonableness is not amenable to rigidly defined categorisation or precise textural formulary: Stretton at [2] and [10] (Allsop CJ) and [62] (Griffiths J) …CONSIDERATIONMr Leach’s application to rely on affidavit evidence