Bojko v Icm Property Service Pty Ltd & Ors

[2009] NSWCA 175

NSW Court of Appeal

Built by Barristers,
For Australian Law.

1. Workers Compensation
2. › Medical assessment
3. › Appeal Panel
4. › Conduct of review
5. › Further medical examination
6. › Whether Panel failed to consider worker's request for further examination
7. › Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998 (NSW), ss 324, 327, 328
1. Administrative Law
2. › Judicial review
3. › Reasons of administrative decision-maker
4. › Proper approach to construction of reasons
5. › Whether reasons to be construed with eye attuned to perception of error
6. › Whether Panel treated relevant consideration as irrelevant
1. Administrative Law
2. › Judicial review
3. › Relevant and irrelevant considerations
4. › Whether failure to expressly refer to a matter in reasons demonstrates failure to consider it

Reasons of a workers compensation Appeal Panel are not to be construed minutely and finely with an eye keenly attuned to the perception of error; the presumption of regularity attending administrative action applies (applying Minister for Immigration and Ethnic Affairs v Wu Shan Liang [1996] HCA 6).
Where an Appeal Panel's substantive reasons address and resolve the very issues raised in support of a request for further medical examination, the Panel's decision that there was 'sufficient information on the papers' adequately explains the refusal of that request, even without express reference to it.
The power under s 324(1)(c) to require a worker to submit to a medical examination is not conditioned on necessity or desirability; a Panel's statement that an examination was not 'necessary' does not of itself indicate it failed to address the correct question.