MacArthur and Comcare

[2003] AATA 1139

Administrative

Appeals

Tribunal

 

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2003] AATA 1139

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No Q2000/171

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION		)
Re		RODERICK MACARTHUR

Applicant

And COMCARE

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal Senior Member BJ McCabe

Date14 November 2003   

PlaceBrisbane

Decision The Tribunal sets aside the decision under review and remits the matter for reconsideration in accordance with these reasons. 

(Sgd) BJ McCabe
  Senior Member

CATCHWORDS

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION – benefits and entitlements – liability – psychiatric condition – whether condition caused or aggravated by the applicant’s employment – whether applicant is permanently incapacitated

Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 ss 14, 16, 19, 66(1)

Re Ileris and Comcare (1999) 56 ALD 301

REASONS FOR DECISION

14 November 2003  Senior Member BJ McCabe         

Introduction

1.      The applicant, Rod Macarthur, has sought review of Comcare’s decision denying liability for his injury. Mr Macarthur suffers from a psychiatric disorder.  The applicant says he developed the disorder (or it was aggravated) as a result of his employment with the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service (AQIS).  He was a meat inspector, although he has been on leave since March 1999.

2.      Comcare, the respondent, is liable under the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 to compensate an employee who sustains an “injury” (including a disease, such as a physical or mental ailment: section 4) that arises out of or in the course of his or her employment, or is aggravated by their employment.  The liability to compensate is set out in section 14.  There is a specific liability to compensate individuals for medical expenses incurred in connection with the treatment of a work related injury (section 16) and for permanent incapacity (section 19).  Mr Macarthur says he has incurred an injury that is compensable under the Act, and adds he is now permanently incapacitated.

3.      Comcare rejected the claim.  In particular, Comcare disputes Mr Macarthur’s account of conditions in the various meatworks in Rockhampton where he worked. Comcare says the applicant’s psychiatric disorder does not arise out of his work and is not therefore an “injury” as defined in section 4 of the Act.

4.      The applicant’s case proceeded on the basis he had been subjected to sustained abuse and mistreatment by his workmates.  He described a number of incidents, including a knife attack, that could – if his accounts are to be believed – constitute stressors that might precipitate or at least contribute to the onset or aggravation of a psychiatric illness.  The respondent disputed whether these incidents occurred, or at least whether they occurred in the way the applicant claimed.  The respondent said the applicant exaggerated events.  Comcare says the applicant’s psychiatric condition is more likely to be attributable to (or aggravated by) events in his personal life, like his divorce, and to constitutional factors, including a family history of depression.

5.      I have difficulty with the applicant’s account of a number of key events at the meatworks.  Mr Clark, for the respondent, managed during the course of a lengthy but skilful cross-examination…