FAUSTO FRIERE v ANI CORPORATION LTD t/as BRADFORD KENDALL FOUNDRIES [1991] NSWCA 96

FAUSTO FRIERE v ANI CORPORATION LTD t/as BRADFORD KENDALL FOUNDRIES

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

SAMUELS AP, PRIESTLEY and HANDLEY JJA 21 June 1991, 21 June 1991 [1991] NSWCA 96

COMPENSATION COURT — whether reasons so insufficient as to be error of law — Soulemezis v Dudley (Holdings) Pty Ltd (1987) 10 NSWLR 247 and Russsell v F J. Walker Ltd, unreported, 10 February 1989, referred to.

Priestley JA This is an appeal from Judge Moroney of the Compensation Court. He, in turn, had heard an appeal from a Commissioner of that Court.

The ground of appeal from the Commissioner's decision to the judge - with whose decision it is necessary for this court, in turn, to deal - was that the Commissioner's reasons for entering an award for the respondent were so insufficient as to amount to an error of law.

Judge Moroney held on that point that, although the judgment of the Commissioner was a little unusual and a little hard to understand, nevertheless the reasons were sufficient to prevent the conclusion that the deficiencies amounted to an error of law.

In this court Judge Moroney has been said to be wrong in law in failing to hold that the Commissioner was wrong in law because of the insufficiency in expression of his reasons. Other matters have been argued in this court but, since in my opinion and with respect to Judge Moroney, he was in error in failing to hold that the Commissioner had made the suggested error of law, I will not go into those other matters.

The proceedings before the Commissioner were a claim by a worker which, as framed in his amended particulars, was a claim for total/or partial/or notional total incapacity from a specified date and the sections specified as giving ground to the claims were 9, 11(1) and 11(2) of the Workers' Compensation Act 1926.