Meaney and Comcare - [2010] AATA 690

Administrative Appeals Tribunal
DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2010] AATA 690
ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL )
) No 2009/5630

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION )

Re JOHN MEANEY

Applicant

And

COMCARE

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal Deputy President P E Hack SC; Dr M Denovan, Member
Date10 September 2010
PlaceBrisbane

Decision The decision under review is affirmed.

..............Signed................
Deputy President

CATCHWORDS
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION – entitlement to compensation – employment related injury, disability or disease – applicant suffering from methamphetamine abuse – Tribunal not satisfied that condition had any relationship with employment – decision under review affirmed
Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth), s 5B, 14
Wiegand v Comcare (2002) 72 ALD 795; [2002] FCA 1464
REASONS FOR DECISION

10 September 2010 Deputy President P E Hack SC; Dr M Denovan, Member

Introduction

The applicant, Mr John Meaney, was employed as an economist in the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) from February 1999 until July 2008 when he resigned from that employment. In February 2009, Mr Meaney lodged a claim with the respondent, Comcare, for compensation pursuant to the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) (the SRC Act).
The claim form lodged described the condition for which compensation was sought as “Stress and Depression” for which treatment had first been sought in December 2007.
Comcare obtained reports from medical and other practitioners who had treated Mr Meaney – Dr Samson Roberts, a consultant psychiatrist, Dr Ercel Ozser a general practitioner and Dr Jennifer Rice, a consultant psychologist – and referred Mr Meaney to another consultant psychiatrist, Dr Robert Gertler, for an opinion on the claim.
On 30 June 2009, Comcare rejected the claim. That decision was affirmed on reconsideration on 1 October 2009. Mr Meaney seeks a review of the decision.
Legislation
By virtue of s 14 of the SRC Act, Comcare is liable to pay compensation in accordance with that Act in respect of an injury suffered by an employee if the injury results in death, incapacity for work or impairment. Mr Meaney was an employee and plainly enough was incapacitated for work at various times. The issue in these proceedings is whether the condition which he says has afflicted him is an injury as that term is used in the SRC Act.
It will suffice for present purposes to say that an injury is a disease suffered by an employee, other than a disease suffered as a result of “reasonable administrative action” taken in a reasonable manner in respect of the employee’s employment[1]. The term “disease” is, in turn, defined in s 5B of the SRC Act as meaning
“(a) an ailment suffered by an employee; or
(b) an aggravation of such an ailment;
that was contributed to, to a significant degree, by the employee’s employment by the Commonwealth …”
Subsection 5B(2) of the SRC Act sets out matters that may be taken into account in determining whether employment contributed to, to a significant degree, an ailment or the aggravation of it. It is not necessary in the present case to have regard to those matters. But “significant degree” means “a degree that is substantially more than material”[2].
[1] See s 5A SRC Act.
[2] See s 5B(3) SRC Act.
The medical evidence
We had the benefit of evidence from each of Drs Roberts, Ozser, Rice and Gertler. All except Dr Gertler gave oral evidence in addition to the written reports provided.
We propose to start with the evidence of Dr Roberts because his particular experience with the treatment of patients with drug addiction makes him best
qualified to deal with Mr Meaney’s ailments. That experience is presently relevant because, during much of the period in question, Mr Meaney was using the illicit drug methamphetamine. Indeed, in October 2007, Mr Meaney was referred to Dr Roberts by his general practitioner for assistance with his drug use. Dr Roberts saw Mr Meaney on nine occasions between October 2007 and December 2008. Dr Robert’s opinion is that Mr Meaney suffered from an ailment which he described as methamphetamine abuse in early partial remission. Such an ailment, according to Dr Roberts, is frequently accompanied by depression, anxiety, delusions (which may last for years) and paranoia. But these are not separate conditions, they are merely symptoms of the underlying condition of methamphetamine abuse.
The view of Dr Roberts was that “there is no relationship between Mr Meaney’s condition and his employment.” That conclusion seems eminently sound.
Dr Ozser, Mr Meaney’s general practitioner between November 2006 and December 2008 described Mr Meaney’s condition as major depression, contributed to by amphetamine dependence and work stress. Dr Ozser’s conclusion about the effects of what he describes as work stress were very much influenced by Mr Meaney’s self-report of matters within the employment setting that he believed were factors contributing to his condition.
Dr Rice is, of course, a psychologist, not a medical practitioner and thus may be regarded as a less reliable diagnostician of medical disorders than a psychiatrist. She was of the view that when she saw Mr Meaney in early 2009 he was suffering from an adjustment disorder with mixed anxiety and depressed mood, chronic, of moderate severity. Dr Rice considered that the most likely cause were four “workplace stressors” recounted to her by Mr Meaney and described by her as
“• perceived discrimination and intimidation in his former workplace, by senior members of the ATO, including his immediate manager;
• obstruction by the ATO of his plan to leave Australia to work overseas with a large accounting firm after he had resigned from his position;
• an internal ATO investigation of him with threat of criminal action pending; and
• financial privation due to suspension from duties without pay in July 2008.”
Dr Gertler, who saw Mr Meaney in April 2009 at the request of Comcare, was of the view that Mr Meaney suffered from methamphetamine abuse in remission and from adjustment disorder with depressed mood. The former condition was not related to Mr Meaney’s employment although, in Dr Gertler’s opinion the latter condition had developed “on the basis of his perceived harassment and bullying by others in the workplace.” But Dr Gertler added an important note of caution in these terms:
”It should be noted that Mr Meaney’s complaints concerning his treatment at work will need to be verified. In part, the complaints may have been affected by the concomitant use of methamphetamine and associated development of paranoid thinking.”
As will appear, we consider Mr Meaney’s complaints concerning his treatment at work to be entirely without foundation and likely to be the product of methamphetamine induced paranoid thinking.
Dr Roberts has particular expertise in treating drug addiction and treated Mr Meaney throughout much of the period in issue in the proceedings. His opinions are of particular assistance and must, we think, be accepted. Those opinions accord with those of other medical practitioners, Dr Ozser and Dr Gertler if, as we find, there is no substance in Mr Meaney’s complaints of his treatment in the workplace. For obvious reasons, we prefer the views of Dr Roberts to those of Dr Rice. It is of concern to us that she appears not to have given any thought to the possibility that Mr Meaney’s account of workplace harassment and bullying may have been affected by paranoid thinking associated with methamphetamine use.
Given our preference for the views of Dr Roberts it follows that we are satisfied that Mr Meaney’s ailment was as diagnosed by Dr Roberts, methamphetamine abuse. And it follows that we are not satisfied that that ailment had any relationship, beyond a temporal one, with Mr Meaney’s employment. We would then, for this reason, affirm the decision under review.
Harassment and bullying
Whilst it is not strictly necessary for us to do so we propose to deal with the allegations made by Mr Meaney about the ATO given the seriousness of those allegations and the extent to which the hearing was devoted to evidence of those matters.
We do not propose to descend onto the detail of Mr Meaney’s allegations. To do so would be unnecessarily hurtful to persons who we are satisfied were not involved in the wrongdoing that Mr Meaney alleges. It will suffice to say that he alleged that corrupt practices were widespread in the area of the ATO where he was employed. He said that he perceived this corrupt atmosphere to be stressful and intimidating. Moreover, he claimed to have had a sexual relationship with a more senior officer which that officer sought to use to influence Mr Meaney to participate in, or overlook, corrupt conduct.
There was a considerable body of evidence from officers within the ATO who completely rejected, by sound and logical reasoning, Mr Meaney’s allegations. We accept that evidence without reservation.
Mr Meaney’s evidence, on the other hand, is not worthy of belief. It is notable that the allegations made by Mr Meaney have become more lurid over time and are not supported by Mr Meaney’s contemporaneous complaints to Dr Ozser and Dr Roberts. Thus, Mr Meaney recounted a conversation in April/May 2008 which he regarded as a threat by his manager to expose the fact that Mr Meaney was using illicit drugs. This conversation, on Mr Meaney’s account of events was enormously stressful and upsetting to him. He saw medical practitioners during this time but made no complaint of suffering stress as a result of this conversation.
The clinical notes of Dr Roberts do make reference in December 2007 and January 2008 to “escalating work conflict”. There was, in fact, conflict at that time which had arisen because Mr Meaney had sought a transfer which had been refused. But there are no references in Dr Robert’s notes thereafter to threats and corrupt practices of the type alleged now by Mr Meaney. There is a reference in notes of a consultation on 11 June 2008 to a complaint that Mr Meaney’s “boss” was using knowledge of his drug use to “blackmail” him however on this occasion Dr Roberts concluded that Mr Meaney was delusional.
Some of the allegations made now by Mr Meaney were apparently made by him to Dr Roberts during the first half of 2008 but it is plain that the majority of the allegations were not made until after Mr Meaney had made a claim for compensation.
Intermittently from August 2006 Mr Meaney was using methamphetamine. Methamphetamine is a drug known to cause paranoia and delusional thinking. In June 2008 Dr Roberts diagnosed that Mr Meaney was delusional. We are well satisfied that there is no substance whatsoever in Mr Meaney’s allegations. They are in our view, the product of delusional thinking.
For completeness we should make reference to the decision in Wiegand v Comcare[3] for the purposes of demonstrating that Mr Meaney’s case is quite different to that case. In Wiegand von Doussa J said
[3] (2002) 72 ALD 795; [2002] FCA 1464.
“A perception held by the employee will meet a ‘reality’ test for the purpose of the definition of disease if it is a perception about an incident or state of affairs that actually happened.”
For the reasons that we have sought to explain we are not satisfied that Mr Meaney’s perceptions are founded on any state of affairs that actually happened.
I certify that the 23 preceding paragraphs are a true copy of the reasons for the decision herein of Deputy President P E Hack SC; Dr M Denovan, Member
Signed:         ............Signed..........................................................
  Associate
Dates of Hearing  17, 18, 19 & 20 August 2010
Date of Decision  10 September 2010
The Applicant in person
Counsel for the Respondent     Mr G M Elliott
Solicitor for the Respondent     Australian Government Solicitor