Background
Allison Cox, a student learning officer, sustained a compensable psychological injury from workplace bullying and harassment. A medical assessor assessed her whole-person impairment at 9%, below the 15% threshold for lump-sum compensation for a primary psychological injury.
The Personal Injury Commission Appeal Panel confirmed that assessment. Cox sought judicial review, arguing that the panel failed to address evidence that she could no longer holiday normally with her family, participate in water-skiing, stay overnight at the family holiday home, or attend the gym. She also challenged the assessor’s use of her ability to drive to Rotary Club meetings in assessing both travel and social-and-recreational functioning.
The Court’s Holding
Price AJA set aside the Appeal Panel’s decision and the resulting Certificate of Determination. The panel constructively failed to exercise its jurisdiction by not engaging with Cox’s substantial and clearly articulated argument that the assessor had overlooked important evidence of restrictions on her social and recreational activities.
The panel’s reasons did not reveal how it reconciled that evidence with the Class 2 rating for social and recreational activities, and were therefore legally inadequate. The Court also held that the assessor wrongly treated Cox’s ability to drive to Rotary meetings as relevant to the social-and-recreational scale when it was directly relevant to the separate travel scale, creating a material error under the impairment guidelines.
Key Takeaways
- An appeal panel must genuinely address a substantial argument based on material evidence, not merely summarise it and state a conclusion.
- Reasons must disclose the path of reasoning sufficient to show why the applicable impairment class was selected.
- Conduct directly relevant to one Psychiatric Impairment Rating Scale cannot be used to assess another scale where that amounts to misassignment or double counting.
Why It Matters
The decision reinforces that impairment assessments for psychological injuries must separately apply each Psychiatric Impairment Rating Scale and account for all material functional restrictions. The distinction was consequential here because a higher class rating could materially increase Cox’s whole-person impairment and affect her entitlement to compensation.
The matter was remitted to the President of the Personal Injury Commission for referral to a differently constituted Appeal Panel. There was no order as to costs.