Madden and Australian Postal Corporation

Administrative Appeals Tribunal

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2008] AATA 411

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No Q2006/902

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION		)
Re		RAYMOND MADDEN

Applicant

And AUSTRALIAN POSTAL CORPORATION

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal

Mr R G Kenny, Member

Dr G Maynard, Member

Date20 May 2008

PlaceBrisbane

Decision The Tribunal affirms the decisions under review

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Mr R G Kenny
  Member

13.     Dr Lovell described this condition as being related to the stressors involved in Mr Madden’s compensation claim.  Dr Lovell’s opinion was that Mr Madden did not suffer from any psychiatric condition at the time when he saw him in March 2007.

Dr Jill Reddan

14.     Dr Reddan completed a detailed and comprehensive report on 15 December 2007 after seeing Mr Madden earlier that month.  She also gave evidence.  Dr Reddan described the events of 10 July 2006 and recorded Mr Madden’s references to feeling depressed in November and December 2006 when he lost approximately 9 kg in weight, was prescribed Zoloft by his general practitioner and took a period of approximately 4 weeks off work.  Dr Reddan’s report recorded details of Mr Madden’s employment, personal and social history.  Her mental estate examination of him revealed an absence of difficulty in explaining his history, normal speech, normal mood limits, normal thought form with no evidence of disorganisation of thinking processes and no significant impairment in his judgment of day-to-day matters.  She described him as having a rather obsessional personality style but, at the time of her consultation with him, as not meeting criteria for a diagnosis of any psychiatric disorder. 

15.     Given Mr Madden’s personality style, Dr Reddan was of the opinion that the symptoms he demonstrated in July 2006 were within the normal range.  However, she considered it likely that he developed either an adjustment disorder with anxiety and depressed mood or an episode of major depression in late 2006.  She considered, particularly on the basis of the contemporaneous material, that this was not materially contributed to by Mr Madden’s employment circumstances but, rather, to issues relating to his compensation claim.

Dr Peter Stebbins

16.     Dr Stebbins is a clinical psychologist who has been involved with assessment and rehabilitation in relation to workers’ compensation matters for more than 10 years.  He saw Mr Madden on 31 July 2006 and completed reports on 18 August 2006 and 14 May 2007.  Dr Stebbins is not a medical practitioner but has a Bachelor of Applied Science degree, a coursework Master of Clinical Psychology degree and a coursework Doctorate. 

17.     In his first report, Dr Stebbins took a history of events that surrounded 10 July 2006 but concluded that the symptoms demonstrated by Mr Madden did not reach a threshold where a diagnosis of a psychiatric condition was warranted.  He described him as experiencing anger, disgruntlement and the build-up of mixed stress symptomatology but considered that these were of a sub-clinical threshold as evidenced by the lack of any significant decline in occupational functioning in the workplace.  In the second report…