QBE Workers Compensation (Vic) Ltd v Freisleben & Nisselle; City of Bayside v Johns & Nisselle

[1999] VSCA 207

Victorian Court of Appeal

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For Australian Law.

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Interrogate

Catchwords

1. Workers' Compensation
2. › Accident Compensation Act 1985 (Vic)
3. › Medical Panels
4. › Reference of medical questions
5. › Whether authorised insurer entitled to refer medical question to Medical Panel
6. › Whether s 67(1) confers power of referral by implication
7. › Accident Compensation Act 1985 (Vic), ss 43(3), 45(1), 56(6), 67(1), 68(4), 99AB(1)
1. Statutes
2. › Construction
3. › Consequential amendments
4. › Inartificial drafting
5. › Whether insertion of 'authorised insurer' by consequential amendment carries implied grant of power
6. › Whether usual canons of construction apply to mechanically drafted consequential amendments
1. Statutes
2. › Construction
3. › Implied powers
4. › Statutory power exercisable only for purpose for which conferred
5. › Whether implied power to refer medical questions limited to discharge of functions under the Act

Quick Take

Section 67(1) of the Accident Compensation Act 1985 (Vic) did not confer on an authorised insurer a general power to refer medical questions to a Medical Panel; the subsection was a machinery provision describing the function of a Medical Panel, not a source of referral power. Any implied power to refer could only be exercised for the purpose of discharging a function committed to the insurer under the Act, and not during the pendency of court proceedings where the insurer's claims-handling function was spent.