Piper and Comcare

[2006] AATA 1007

Administrative

Appeals

Tribunal

 

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2006] AATA 1007

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No N2005/1224

GENERAL ADMINISTRATIVE DIVISION		)
Re		BRIAN PIPER

Applicant

And COMCARE

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal Ms N Bell, Senior Member

Date27 November 2006

PlaceSydney

Decision The decision under review is affirmed.

...................[Sgd]...........................

Ms N Bell  Senior Member  

COMPENSATION – Suffered Injury – Psychiatric Condition Outside the Boundaries of Normal Functioning – Anxiety – Co-Worker – Threat of Violence – Anxiety Disorder – Recognition of Workplace Injury – The Decision Under Review is Affirmed

Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, 1988

Comcare v Mooi (1996) 69 FCR 439

REASONS FOR DECISION

Ms N Bell, Senior Member

1.      Mr Piper, after being appointed to the position of Acting Officer in Charge of Armoury (Weapons Warehouse) with the Department of Defence, found himself in conflict with one of his staff.  He found the staff member’s behaviour, which he said included a threat of violence, very difficult to deal with and became distressed and upset.  On 21 October 2004 Mr Piper went to see his General Practitioner, Dr Chiew, who provided medical certificates that stated he had “anxiety” owing to repeated harassment by a co-worker, that he needed “rest – away from work” and certified him unfit for work for, altogether, a period of two weeks.  On 8 November 2004 Mr Piper made a claim for compensation for “anxiety disorder” arising out of “false verbal allegations and lies made to management over the past 12 months”.

2.      An officer of Comcare wrote to Mr Piper advising that a “fact finding process” would be embarked on to clarify or confirm facts relevant to his claim.  That process was abandoned because, Comcare said, the workplace was disbanded and all relevant people, including the person with whom Mr Piper was in conflict, had left the organisation.  Mr Piper was upset by the abandonment of the fact finding process and still maintains that the matter was not investigated thoroughly.

3.      Comcare rejected Mr Piper’s claim for compensation because it considered he had not suffered an injury within the meaning of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act, 1988.   In particular, Comcare considered Mr Piper did not suffer a psychiatric condition outside the boundaries of normal functioning and behaviour but, rather, that he was simply anxious and unhappy for a time.

4.      The only issue for me to consider in this application is whether Mr Piper suffered an injury.

evidence

5.      Mr Piper described the actions of his staff member over the course of a year, culminating in a threat of violence reported to him by another member of the organisation.  He said he couldn’t eat or sleep and was having nightmares of being shot.  Mr Piper described this against a background of having been “thrown into (his) job at the deep end” and finding his role very stressful because he was dealing with weaponry and there was no tolerance for error.  He said 24 hours after he was transferred to Armoury…