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austlii:nsw/NSWPICMP/2026/243
General information, not legal advice.
NSWPICMP
2026-04-07
Original judgment source is linked above.
Yu v Allianz Australia Insurance Limited [2026] NSWPICMP 243
MOTOR ACCIDENTS - Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017; review of Medical Assessment Certificate (MAC); claimant was a passenger who boarded a bus and was putting something in the luggage area when the bus suddenly braked causing the claimant to fall to the ground; Review Panel diagnosed an adjustment disorder caused by the motor accident and whole person impairment (WPI); there was a subsequent injury about a year following the motor accident where the claimant had a fall at home and sustained a subdural haematoma; claimant was a very poor historian, likely from the effects of the subdural haematoma; Review Panel relied on the documentation on file; considered and applied; Review Panel considered any cognitive impairment caused by the subdural haematoma is neurological impairment and not assessable under the Psychiatric Impairment Rating Scale; in any event, the Review Panel did not consider the fall at home to be causally related to the subject accident; there was no element of aggravation of the accident-related adjustment disorder; Review Panel assessed at 6% WPI; MAC revoked; new certificate issued.
Certificate issued under Division 7.5 of the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017
24 October 2024 and issues a new certificate as follows:
(a) the Review Panel certifies the following injury was caused by the motor accident:
(i) adjustment disorder, and
(b) the Review Panel finds that the above injury results in a whole person impairment of 6% which is NOT GREATER than 10%.
The claimant is a 67-year-old married man who at the time of his accident was teaching painting and fine arts to private students and students from other institutions. He worked some 20 hours per week.
He believed he was in good health. He denied any previous history of psychiatric illness but said he had been 'kind of obsessed with being clean' but it seems this was not a problem for him, and did not cause any functional limitations.
He denied a range of medical conditions apart from high cholesterol.
He does not drink alcohol ('barely any') though 'in the past I drank maybe a little bit - when friends came over'. He was asked about the reference in the Concord Hospital notes to his fall having been in the context of alcohol intoxication. He responded, 'I've already told my lawyer about this - they were guessing - they assumed'.
He does not smoke. He does not use drugs. He does not gamble.
He denied any history of problems with the law. He denied any other claims history.
He knew of no family history of psychiatric problems.
He hails from Shanghai. He has one older sister. His parents are both deceased. He saw his childhood as reasonably 'normal' as his parents both had stable jobs. He completed degrees in fine arts, both in China and Australia.
He came to Australia in 1988 wanting to go overseas to study. He settled in Australia because of the Tiananmen Square events.
He had worked variously in film animation and also in car parks.
He is over 22 years married. He has no children. His wife works intermittently in accounting and also had her own small business involving introducing international students to Australia and arranging accommodation for them.
On the day of the accident, he had gone into Bunnings Warehouse to buy a painting board. He sat down. The bus started driving. He was sitting at the very front of the bus. He wanted to put his board behind his seat and was twisted round. The bus braked and he was thrown forward. He hit something and fell to the ground.
History of symptoms and treatment following the motor accident
He said, 'Both my front and my back were in extreme pain - I also think I hit my head'. He said, 'The injury to the back was mainly caused by the painting board because it was thrown forward and hit my back'. He 'thought it was just muscle pain, so I went home... at night I was in so much pain - I was crying out'.
The next day he went to see his doctor. He was asked to undergo a CT scan and x-rays. No problems were identified ('Maybe the machine was too old').
He was still in a lot of pain over the next couple of days and had further imaging and found out he had rib fractures.
His account became vague at this point, and he said he was 'trying to remember' what happened afterwords.
Details of any relevant injuries or conditions sustained since the motor accident
His wife said that in February he started experiencing severe headaches which persisted until June. He saw his doctor who sent him for a CT scan and found out there were 'blood clots' in his brain. He was referred to a 'a brain doctor' but 'had three falls because of bleeding in my brain' and was taken to surgery. He said, 'The doctor didn't know about the car accident and reached the conclusion that I'd consumed some alcohol and thought or so? I had a fall'.
He said he 'had two surgeries - the first one was not very successful - the first one they didn't clean it up properly, so they had to do a second surgery...'. He thought he may have not had enough anaesthetic at time of the first surgery because he was 'shouting and calling out' and 'was in so much pain and the medical staff were trying to pin me down and I bit them - I called out to stop doing the surgery and let me die - I was in too much pain'. The second surgery seems to have gone better.
He could not recall if he had any brain injury rehabilitation after his surgery.
He sees his GP often and has physiotherapy. He sees a Chinese medicine practitioner for massages and other traditional treatments. He has pain in his arms, his shoulder, and his back which is worse on the left. He says his pain is not the main reason for his poor sleep but because there is so much going on for him in his mind 'and the more I think about it, the more I can't sleep'. He also has frequent headaches which are mainly on the left side.
His sleep is fragmented because of this, he said during the day he is very tired. He is particularly anxious on rainy days such as today. He could not articulate why this was so other than it 'makes me feel very depressed'.
He said, 'Mentally and physically I don't feel well - sometimes I feel that there's something on my chest - on a rainy day, it gets worse'.
His 'mood is not very good, and I get grumpy with the wife' though she tries now not to argue with him.
He admits to sadness. He said his wife might ask him to eat something and he doesn't feel like it and on one or two occasions he has vomited but otherwise has been dry retching.
He did not recall seeing a psychologist, Hansen Li, after his accident.
His GP has prescribed pain medications including Panadol and Codalgin as well as some sleeping pills such as melatonin. He has traditional Chinese medicine sessions every couple of weeks.
He does not particularly want to see a psychologist saying he does not think it would help much although his wife is trying to set a further appointment after he declined to attend an earlier appointment.
We interviewed the claimant on Microsoft Teams. A professional Mandarin interpreter, Interpreter Candice Wang, was present throughout. He was at his lawyer's office. His wife was also present off camera. Panel Assessors Canaris and Hong were in their respective offices. A good audiovisual connection was established. We saw his head and shoulders. He presented as a man of appearance consistent with his stated age and Chinese ethnicity who was clean shaven with neatly cut hair. He provided the history documented above and it was evident from the translation that he had some mild word finding difficulties. His narrative was otherwise coherent. His affect was somewhat restricted. No evidence of psychosis emerged.
We administered brief cognitive testing. He was not sure whether the date was the 24th or 25th saying he didn't check. He does not pay attention to what day of the week it is and thought the day of the week might be Thursday. He knew the month to be February and the year to be 2026. He knew he was at his lawyer's but did not know the name of the suburb saying, 'They drove me here'. He was pushed and said, 'I think it should be the city - they told me it's close to Town Hall'. He gave the name of his law firm as 'Young something'. He said he knew his lawyer's last name was 'Young' saying it had been his wife who had been in contact with him. He gave his address as [address redacted] in Campsie. He did not know the postcode ('I don't know because I don't use it'). He did not recall our names. He was asked to attempt to recall a list of three items (apple, president, charity) initially recalling only two out of the three. When asked to recall these items after a supervening task, he recalled two items correctly but gave 'bottle' instead of 'apple' which the interpreter said was similar in Chinese to the word for 'apple'. When asked to perform the serial sevens test (subtract seven from 100 and keep taking seven away from the result), he responded 93, 86, 78, 71, 65, 58 at which point he was asked to stop.
We concluded that the claimant made an adequate effort in response to cognitive testing and that his performance was indicative of mild but significant cognitive impairment.
He said, 'I don't really feel like moving - I spend time watching videos - I get tired, so I feel like sleeping - my wife want me to go out for a walk, but I don't want to go - I prefer a quiet environment'. He would get up late because he does not sleep well at night saying he does 'not feel energetic and I don't have high spirits'. He watches short reels and does not read - he struggles to concentrate.
His memory is 'very bad' and 'I tend to mess up with timelines... for example, earlier I told you I had some scans but if you ask me the whole process, I couldn't tell what I had, when and why I had it - I can only tell generally - also some of the things I told you today might not be accurate...'.
His wife 'looks after me' and 'I don't feel like having a shower. The sound of the running water annoys me. I don't really go out much, so I don't sweat much but she makes me shower, so I shower' but reluctantly. He did not cook before accident which his wife still did as was the case with cleaning. His appetite is 'very poor - I have two meals a day'. He has lost about 5 kg gradually.
He said he did not work after his accident before his brain surgery. He said he was 'scared and kind of agitated and I don't feel like going and I'm scared of places where there are too many people... also I don't have enough energy... I don't feel like I can stick to something and complete it'. He lives off income from investment properties and on some income from his wife's work with students.
He does not go out socially saying, 'I basically don't go out'. He does not want to attend anything - I just want to be quietly staying at home'. He said he went out only to attend clinical appointments at his wife's behest. His friends sometimes visits but he does not visit them and would chat mainly with his wife 'and sometimes I don't understand what they're talking about or what my wife is talking about'.
His relationship with his wife is 'currently OK but before we were arguing a lot - she gave up on asking me to do things'.
He has his license but does not drive saying his wife won't allow him to drive. He 'would barely take public transport these days - I'm a bit scared - when the driver's brake, I'm scared and my wife doesn't allow me to go'. He said he did not go on buses at all in the aftermath of the accident. He said he is also very anxious as a passenger.
As noted above, he did not recall seeing a psychologist, Hansen Li. It was pointed out to him that his psychologist had written that he was working after the accident, he felt recovered from the bus accident and that file identified him by name and date of birth, and noted improvement with treatment, and a couple of entries at the end noted he had largely recovered psychologically. He remarked that this was 'impossible' saying, 'Maybe it was a mistake because I haven't taught since my surgery'. He was reminded that his psychologist had seen him 10 times since the accident and before his surgery, noting him to be improving as he was teaching four or five students, going out, and eventually largely recovered even if slightly hesitant of being on a bus. He responded that 'I might have told him a few times that I'd been out a few times' but that he had been anxious and that he told his wife about his anxiety and she in turn told him to stop.
We concluded that the claimant was not a reliable reporter of his functioning most likely because of his brain haemorrhage which made it harder for him to provide a good sequential recall of his functioning after the accident but before his brain haemorrhage. On this basis, we considered the contemporaneous treatment records to be more accurate evidence of his impairment from the subject accident.
We noted the claimant's review submissions dated 20 November 2024.
We noted the statutory declaration of the claimant's friend, Hong Zhu, dated 6 November 2024. Mr Zhu writes that he would visit the claimant and find him in low spirits showing no interest in the world around him and he 'could not follow me during communicate with him [sic]' but 'would like to lie down and rest after sitting for a while'.
We noted the statutory declaration of Ming Fa Zhang, the claimant's friend for 30 years, also dated 6 November 2024. This is very similar to that of Hong Zhu. He would visit the claimant with his wife sometimes and noted him to be uncommunicative and often lying on the sofa. He and his wife would want to take out for a walk, but he would decline and did not want to come over to their house.
Comment: It is not clear to what extent the statutory declarations apply to the claimant's functioning in November 2024 which is after his brain haemorrhage as opposed to his functioning over the months following the subject accident.
We noted the claimant's submissions dated 22 April 2024.
We noted the discharge referral dated 9 October 2023 with subsequent outpatient attendances from Concord Hospital relating to the claimant subdural haematoma. There were progress notes from this hospitalisation as well as sundry other documentation related to this hospitalisation. We noted also that his fall may have occurred in the setting of alcohol intoxication.
We noted the complete record of Campsie Family Medical Centre as at 18 January 2024. These relate to predominantly physical issues including his hygroma though we noted a prescription for temazepam on 28 June 2023.
We noted sundry certificates of capacity which refer to psychological stress as well as to his physical injuries.
There were sundry allied health recovery requests for physiotherapy.
We noted progress notes of Complete Allied Health Care for exercise physiology. His first entry is on 27 November 2022 which reports to be fearful of catching a bus because of his anxiety, notes that he had not been out for his daily walks since this accident and was extremely cautious in traffic. He had broken sleep waking 3-4 times per night 2-3 times a week which were accompanied by night sweats. An entry on 13 January 2023 documents ongoing anxiety with some difficulty sleeping at night. He was anxious in the afternoons. He was noted to be reading and sometimes drawing and to be able to focus for one hour and then get distracted although he had some trouble focusing on conversations. He was noted to be feeling 'a bit depressed' and to have 'Loss of interest' with lack of motivation. There are ongoing entries which refer to some impairment in concentration. He was scared of crowds and scared of cars on the road and reported 'Nightmares once every few months'. He could browse on his computer for 20-30 minutes but could only focus for 20-30 minutes at a time. His wife would cook for him, yet but he was able to do so if necessary. He was not motivated to do household chores. There were further entries in this vein. On 14 April 2023, he was noted to have less pain, and to be spending time with friends though he was afraid of heights, afraid of rowdy people, and cautious about being on a bus. He would often go out for walks and travel around Sydney. An entry on 28 April 2023 notes him to be 'Feeling almost recovered' and 'very similar to before'. He was noted to be 'Feeling psychologically recovered' and 'No longer upset and scared' although 'Still slightly hesitant to be on a bus'. He had 4-5 students and 'Enjoys travelling and teaching'. 12 May 2023 states, 'Feels almost recovered', 'Psychologically active', and 'Feeling cautious but not scared'.
Correspondence from Hansen Li, psychologist, dated 24 March 2023 of the diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder noting him to have a score of 63 on the PCL-5.
We noted the report of Dr Farhan Shahzad, IME occupational physician, dated 26 February 2024. Dr Shahzad deals predominantly with physical issues and noted that after his fall on the bus in which he had sustained fractures to his left 8th and 9th rib coupled with a chronic hygroma, he had also developed increasing headaches problems with balance and generalized right leg weakness culminating in his admission to Concord Hospital with a traumatic left subdural haemorrhage following a fall at home for which he underwent a burr hole evacuation. He was noted to score 22/30 on the MoCA with memory deficits in delayed recall. He recovered well from his surgery but was noted by his GP to have some cognitive impairment. He assessed his whole person impairment from physical causes at 15%.
We noted the certificate of Assessor Ian Cameron dated 15 November 2024 determining that the claimant's soft tissue injuries to his lumbar spine, head, left shoulder, abdomen, left arm, and left leg and rib fractures gave rise to a permanent impairment of 2%. He further noted that the brain haemorrhage was not related to the accident because symptoms relating to this were first noted approximately 8 months after the accident.
We noted the certificate of Assessor Gerald Chew dated 24 October 2024. Dr Chew diagnosed adjustment disorder with anxiety caused by the accident and perpetuated by ongoing symptoms and pain with exacerbation/perpetuation emanating from the fall with a subdural haematoma. He noted a prior diagnosis of posttraumatic stress disorder which had been in remission since at least May 2023. He noted him to be having treatment. He assessed him as having a whole person impairment of 7% with no pre-existing impairment or adjustment for treatment effects. He rated him as Class 2 for all categories except for concentration, persistence, and pace which he rated as Class 3."
"6.7 There is no simple common test of causation that is applicable to all cases, but the accepted approach involves determining whether the injury (and the associated impairment) was caused or materially contributed to by the motor accident. The motor accident does not have to be a sole cause as long as it is a contributing cause, which is more than negligible. Considering the question 'Would this injury (or impairment) have occurred if not for the accident?' may be useful in some cases, although this is not a definitive test and may be inapplicable in circumstances where there are multiple contributing causes."
Entries in the medical record around January 2023 indicate that he was not motivated to do household chores. His wife would cook for him, but he was able to do so if necessary. He himself said that he did not cook before the accident and that his wife also did his cleaning. He is capable of independent living as a result of the psychological injury caused by the subject accident.
He was noted in April 2023 to be spending time with friends although he was afraid of rowdy people and cautious about being on a bus. Other entries note that he would often go for walks and travel around Sydney. The Panel attributed little weight to his friend's statements as these were obtained after the subdural haematoma. As he has largely recovered psychologically, and has various social and recreational activities, he has mild impairment as a result of the subject accident.
Documents from his psychologist indicated that he was "Still slightly hesitant to be on a bus". Despite impairment from his psychological injury, he is able to go out on his own and use buses.
The Panel could not find evidence in the documentation on hand in relation to social functioning apart from him stating he has been "grumpy" with his wife. He has only a few friends. His marital relationship remains intact. Using clinical judgement, we concluded that he had Class 2 impairment in this category.
The Panel noted entries in January 2023 indicating that he to be reading and sometimes drawing and to be able to focus for one hour and then get distracted although he had some trouble focusing on conversations. He was noted to be feeling "a bit depressed" and to have "Loss of interest" with lack of motivation. Psychologically, he is able to focus on intellectually demanding tasks, including teaching which was at least 30 minutes at a time.
According to the documentation on hand, he was enjoying teaching four or five students around April 2023. He can perform his pre-injury duties but not more than 20 hours per week. As noted above under the heading "Comments on consistency", the Panel is of the view that the evidence of treating psychologist Hansen Li is contemporaneous and accurate in regards to the claimant's teaching. In any event, his psychologist gave examples of the claimant's improvement around April 2023 which the Panel finds consistent with the claimant being able to cope with the demands of his pre-injury duties albeit at a reduced capacity.
Psychiatric impairment rating scale - Pre-existing/subsequent impairment
Apportionment - pre-existing/subsequent impairment
Degree of permanent impairment caused by the motor accident
[2] At page 1120 of the claimant's original bundle.
[3] At page 1115 of the claimant's original bundle.
[7]State Government Insurance Commission v Oakley [1990] WASC 13; (1990) 10 MVR 570 per Malcolm CJ.
Yu
Allianz Australia Insurance Limited [2026] NSWPICMP 243;