Morgan v Repatriation Commission

[2005] AATA 458

Administrative

Appeals

Tribunal

 

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2005] AATA 458

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No N2003/1852

VETERANS APPEALS  DIVISION		)
Re		JOHN MORGAN

Applicant

And REPATRIATION COMMISSION

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal Ms N Bell, Senior Member
Dr P D Lynch, Member

Date20 May 2005

PlaceSydney

Decision The decision under review is set aside and the Tribunal decides instead that Mr Morgan suffers from anxiety disorder which is war caused.  This decision takes effect from 24 February 2001.

.................[sgd].........

Ms N Bell

Presiding Member

VETERANS’ AFFAIRS – Correct Diagnosis – Generalised Anxiety Disorder – Clinical Onset Within Two Years of Stressor – Stressors Amount to Severe Psychosocial Stressors as Defined Within Statement of Principles – Psychiatric Illness is War Caused.

Veterans’ Entitlements Act 1986

Statement of Principles No1 of 2000

Lees v Repatriation Commission (2002) 36 AAR 484

White v Repatriation Commission [2004] FCA 633

REASONS FOR DECISION

20 May 2005 Ms N Bell, Senior Member
Dr P D Lynch, Member      

1.      Mr Morgan, now aged 57, served in the Royal Australian Navy from 4 April 1964, aged 17 until 29 September 1971.  He had operational service on the HMAS Vendetta in Vietnam from 20 September 1965 to 3 October 1965 and in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei during 27 July 1965 to 18 September 1965, 12 October 1965 to 5 January 1966 and 12 January 1966 to 2 March 1966.

2.      Mr Morgan made a claim in respect of post traumatic stress disorder (“ptsd”) with alcohol abuse on 24 May 2001.  The Repatriation Commission rejected that claim, concluding that he suffered from ptsd with anxiety and claustrophobia but that it was not war caused.  The Veterans’ Review Board also found the condition to be not war caused but varied the diagnosis to anxiety disorder with depressed mood features.

3.      Mr Morgan, in his application to this Tribunal, initially contended a number of alternative diagnoses – anxiety disorder or ptsd or alcohol abuse – but, by the conclusion of the hearing contended the preferred diagnosis is anxiety disorder.  The commission contended Mr Morgan suffers from no psychiatric condition.  Diagnosis was therefore in issue.

4.      Mr Morgan also contended a number of stressors which, he hypothesised, gave rise to his psychiatric condition.  By the conclusion of the hearing, he contended the most important of these stressors was his experience in 1965 in the gun turret of HMAS Vendetta.  In keeping with his preferred diagnosis, he relied primarily on factor 5(a)(ii) of the Statement of Principles (No. 1 of 2000), that is, he experienced a severe psychosocial stressor within the two years immediately before the clinical onset of anxiety disorder, to support the reasonableness of his hypothesis.  The Commission contended that Mr Morgan’s experience in the gun turret does not amount to a severe psychosocial stressor within the meaning of the Statement of Principles (“SoP”) and that, in any event, the clinical onset of Mr Morgan’s condition, if found by the Tribunal, was not within two years of the claimed stressor.