Ryan and Repatriation Commission

Administrative Appeals Tribunal

DECISION AND REASONS FOR DECISION [2010] AATA 230

ADMINISTRATIVE APPEALS TRIBUNAL      )

)          No 2007/4948

VETERAN'S APPEALS  DIVISION		)
Re		Kathleen Ryan

Applicant

And Repatriation Commission

Respondent

DECISION

Tribunal

Senior Member Jill Toohey

Dr Max Thorpe, Member

Date              31 March 2010

PlaceSydney

Decision The Tribunal affirms the decision under review.

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

Senior Member

2.Intra cerebral haemorrhage skull fracture

13.     There is no dispute that the medical cause of Mr Ryan’s death was as listed on his death certificate.  It is agreed, and we are satisfied, that his kind of death for the purposes of the Act was the massive blood loss he suffered following the trauma of the accident.

14.     There are no SOPs currently applicable to the kind of death met by Mr Ryan.

Was Mr Ryan’s hearing loss related to his service

15.     Mrs Ryan contends that her husband’s death was caused by the accident on 21 July 1999 which arose out of, or was attributable to, his hearing loss which itself arose out of, or was attributable to, his operational service. 

16.     Mrs Ryan relies SOP No 29 of 2001, Sensorineural Hearing Loss, factor 5(a) of which requires:

being exposed to an impulsive noise of at least 130 dBA without adequate ear protection before the clinical onset of sensorineural hearing loss

17.     Mr Ryan was in receipt of a service pension before his death.  Mrs Ryan believes this was on account of his hearing loss but the Commission’s records show that this was not so.  The misunderstanding may have arisen because Mr Ryan was able to obtain benefits, including hearing aids and related treatment, associated with his service pension.  However, the records show that he did not ever receive a disability pension on account of his hearing loss.  No claim of a connection between his hearing loss and his service appears to have been made until Mrs Ryan’s claim for a widow’s pension.

18.     Mrs Ryan gave evidence that her husband developed hearing loss in his left ear in 1982.  As she recalls, he had a hearing aid fitted in that ear in 1982, and another fitted in his right ear in 1986.  He wore his hearing aids all the time but would turn them down, although not off, when there was loud background noise such as traffic; he would turn them up again to hear people talking.

19.     Mrs Ryan told us that her husband would go out each morning to the local shop to buy the newspaper, always at the same time and in the same direction.  She did not accompany him and so cannot say from her own observations what route he would follow but she knew it was his habit to follow the same route at the same time each morning.  Each evening he would take a different walk, to the nearby beach.

20.     According to Mrs Ryan, her husband did not say a lot about his time in the army and she did not ask; if he wanted…