austlii:nsw/NSWPICMP/2025/185
General information, not legal advice.
NSWPICMP
2025-03-20
Original judgment source is linked above.
Classic Carpentry Services Pty Ltd v Tideswell [2025] NSWPICMP 185
WORKERS COMPENSATION - Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998; calculation errors; accepted by the respondent; ; evidence of complaints and investigations shortly before work injury; consideration of pathology of those complaints in context of significant and traumatic injury; Medical Assessor failed to consider relevant evidence and failed to provide adequate reasons; - Medical Assessment Certificate revoked; deductions of one-tenth made for left shoulder and left knee.
1 March 2021 (the Guidelines) and the American Medical Association Guides to the Evaluation of Permanent Impairment, 5th edition (AMA 5).
"Secondly, s 328(2) requires that the review 'is limited to the grounds of appeal on which the appeal is made.' Because the gateway function of the Registrar is satisfied if 'at least one of the grounds' has been made out, it appears that the Appeal Panel is not limited to the ground held by the Registrar to have been made out, but may consider all grounds of appeal raised in the appellant's application. On the other hand, it is clear that the Appeal Panel is not permitted to look for errors which are not part of the grounds of appeal on which the appeal is made."
(a) a failure to consider relevant evidence;
(b) a failure to provide adequate reasons, and
(c) a failure to apply a deduction (probably best characterised as an error of law in failing to apply s 323 correctly).
"As discussed in Cole v Wenaline Pty Limited at [30], in the case of a workplace injury caused by an exacerbation or acceleration of a pre-existing condition, what must be determined by a medical specialist under s 323 is:
"Section 323 as I have already said, requires there to be a deduction for any proportion of the impairment that is due to any pre-existing condition. This is an essential element of the section; indeed it is the pith of it. It is not enough to simply identify that there is a pre-existing condition and that there has been a subsequent impairment and therefore make a deduction under this section because of the existence of the pre-existing condition. Such reasoning fails to consider a necessary condition of the operation of the section; that a proportion of the permanent impairment is due to the pre-existing condition."
Ground 5 - failure to consider relevant evidence
"These propositions are well settled. They recognise the reality that the reasons of an administrative decision-maker are meant to inform and not to be scrutinised upon over-zealous judicial review by seeking to discern whether some inadequacy may be gleaned from the way in which the reasons are expressed."
"With respect to the report by Dr Bentivoglio dated 29/08/2022, I note he has detected greater range of motion in both shoulders and also documents some inconsistency in ranges of shoulder motion. He has therefore not assessed the right shoulder on the basis of restricted range of motion. I did not observe inconsistency of movement and have assessed according to range of motion. > > I agree with the assessment of the neck as DRE Cervical Category I. > > I found similar ranges of motion in the elbow but did not observe inconsistency in ranges of motion of the elbow. > > With respect to the left knee, I did observe a 10° fixed flexion contracture."
"Definitely Mr Tideswell's local doctor's notes a short term prior to the specific injury indicates that he was having significant problems present in his left knee. An ultrasound done of his left shoulder prior to the specific incident also showed he had a tera of his rotator cuff tendons in his left shoulder. There should be a 100% deduction for previous (and recently symptomatic) knee and shoulder complaints"
In Wingfoot Australia Partners Pty Ltd v Kocak [2013] HCA 43; 252 CLR 480, the High Court of Australia dealt with the nature of the jurisdiction exercised by a medical panel under cognate Victorian legislation. The legislation is not entirely the same but it is broadly similar in purpose. Allowing for some differences, the High Court said at page 498 [47]: > > "The material supplied to a medical panel may include the opinions of other medical practitioners, and submissions to the Medical Panel may seek to persuade the Medical Panel to adopt reasoning or conclusions expressed in those opinions. The Medical Panel may choose in a particular case to place weight on the medical opinion supplied to it in forming and giving its own opinion. It goes too far, however, to conceive of the functions of the panel as being either to decide a dispute or to make up its mind by reference to completing contentions or competing medical opinions. The function of a medical panel is neither arbitral or adjudicative: It is neither to choose between competing arguments nor to opine on the correctness of other opinions on that medical question. The function is in every case to perform and to give its own opinion on the medical question referred to it by applying its own medical experience and its own medical expertise." > > Not all of this, as I have said, is apposite in the context of the New South Wales legislation. In particular it is obvious that approved medical specialists are required to decide disputes referred to them by the process of medical assessment. Even so, it is not necessary that approved medical specialists should sit as decision makers choosing between the competing medical opinions put forward by the parties. Essentially, the function is the same as that described by the High Court in Wingfoot Australia. That is to say, their function is in every case to form and give his or her own opinion on the medical question referred by applying his or her own medical experience and his or her own medical expertise. It is sufficient, as their Honours pointed out at [55], that: > > "The statement of reasons... explain the actual path of reasoning in sufficient detail to enable the Court to see whether the opinion does or does not involve any error of law.""
This Certificate is issued pursuant to s 328(5) of the Workplace Injury Management and Workers Compensation Act 1998.
The Appeal Panel revokes the Medical Assessment Certificate of Medical Assessor Rob Kuru and issues this new Medical Assessment Certificate as to the matters set out in the Table below:
Chapter, page and paragraph number in NSW workers compensation guidelines
Chapter, page, paragraph, figure and table numbers in AMA 5 Guides
Proportion of permanent impairment due to pre-existing injury, abnormality or condition
Sub-total/s % WPI (after any deductions in column 6)
Right upper extremity (right shoulder and right elbow)
Total % WPI (the Combined Table values of all sub-totals)
Classic Carpentry Services Pty Ltd
Tideswell [2025] NSWPICMP 185