JTE Enterprises Pty Ltd t/as Mount Gibraltar Preschool v Brown

[2025] NSWSC 1502

Supreme Court of NSW

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For Australian Law.

Where a workers compensation claim and referral to a Medical Assessor identify 'right lower extremity' as a body part without qualification, the medical dispute encompasses the entire lower extremity including the knee, and the Medical Assessor is not confined to assessing only the ankle even where the original injury was an ankle injury.
Under s 319 of the Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998 (NSW), the scope of a medical dispute is determined by the totality of the claim documentation — including the application to resolve a dispute, the reply, and the referral — not solely by the original mechanism of injury; a party's failure to use available opportunities to qualify the scope of the referral may be significant.
Where a referral lists CRPS and right lower extremity as separate body parts, exclusion of CRPS by the Medical Assessor does not preclude assessment of the full lower extremity, as the two are not necessarily co-dependent.