ADMINISTRATIVE LAW — judicial review — judicial review of decision of medical Appeal Panel — claim for worker’s compensation — psychological injury — assessment of degree of permanent impairment — consideration of “travel” under the Psychiatric Impairment Rating Scale classes — whether Appeal Panel denied procedural fairness when making factual finding that plaintiff could travel without support person — where plaintiff did not request re-examination — whether Appeal Panel departed from the grounds of appeal when finding demonstrable error — summons dismissed
Quick Take
1A party who expressly states in appeal proceedings that re-examination is not sought cannot establish a denial of procedural fairness based on the Appeal Panel's failure to re-examine, even where the Panel subsequently makes factual findings on the papers that the party disputes.
2Where an Appeal Panel describes a 'demonstrable error' under s 327(3)(d) by reference to a particular aspect of the submissions advanced by the appellant (here, failure to give reasons for disagreeing with earlier assessments), this does not constitute a departure from the grounds of appeal where the identified aspect was encompassed within the submissions supporting the ground relied upon.
3The court expressed reservations (without deciding) as to whether the PIRS Table 11.3 'travel' descriptors — which read as closed criteria rather than illustrative examples — can properly be treated as non-prescriptive in the same way as other PIRS tables with multiple behavioural examples.
