Rucker v Blackwood

[2014] ICQ 28

INDUSTRIAL COURT OF QUEENSLAND

CITATION:

Rucker v Blackwood [2014] ICQ 028

PARTIES:

LAURENCE RAY RUCKER
(appellant)
v
SIMON BLACKWOOD (WORKERS COMPENSATION REGULATOR)
(respondent)

CASE NO:

C/2014/22

PROCEEDING:

Appeal

DELIVERED ON:

31 October 2014

HEARING DATE:

1 July 2014

MEMBER:

Martin J, President

ORDER:

Appeal dismissed.

CATCHWORDS:

WORKERS’ COMPENSATION – PROCEEDINGS TO OBTAIN COMPENSATION – DETERMINATION OF CLAIMS – APPEALS, JUDICIAL REVIEW AND STATED CASES – GENERALLY – where the appellant was stood down from active duty in the Queensland Police Service – where the appellant lodged a claim for compensation for a stress/adjustment disorder – where the Review Unit of the Regulator rejected the application – where the Commission rejected the application – whether the appellant was denied natural justice before the stand down notice was issued and the Commissioner erred in taking into account decisions by the Supreme Court on this point – whether this Court should hear, or consider, evidence about the appellant’s susceptibility to work related stress – whether the Commissioner should not have admitted into evidence a briefing note without the author of that note being called.

Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003

CASES:

Davidson v Simon Blackwood (Workers Compensation Regulator) [2014] ICQ 008
Rucker v Stewart [2013] QSC 182; [2014] QCA 32

APPEARANCES

Appellant - litigant in person
M Spry for the respondent, directly instructed by the Workers’ Compensation Regulator

1. On 4 October 2011 the appellant was stood down from active duty in the Queensland Police Service pursuant to a notice signed by the then Deputy Commissioner of Police, Mr Stewart.  The stand down notice was subject to a series of conditions which were included in a memorandum.  The appellant was served with the stand down notice and the accompanying conditions on 5 October 2011. 

1. The appellant attended his general practitioner on 5 October 2011 and was provided with a workers’ compensation medical certificate in which the cause of injury was shown as “stress/adjustment disorder”.  On the same day the appellant lodged a claim for compensation with WorkCover Queensland. 

1. The Review Unit of the Regulator rejected Mr Rucker’s application for workers compensation and he appealed to the Commission. At the hearing before the Commission, the respondent conceded that the appellant was a worker and that he had suffered a personal injury in the form of “work related stress” as diagnosed by his general practitioner. The point which had to be decided by the Commission was whether or not the injury which was otherwise covered by s 32(1) of the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act 2003 was excluded by operation of s 32(5) of that Act. It was for the appellant to demonstrate that s 32(5) did not apply.

1. The Commissioner came to the conclusion that he was “unable to find that the management action associated with the standing down of the applicant was unreasonable or that the relevant management action was taken in an unreasonable way”. 

1. In his notice of appeal the appellant sets out 19 grounds of appeal.  In the appellant’s outline of…