JA CROCKETT PTY LTD v COX [1994] NSWCA 151

JA CROCKETT PTY LTD v COX SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

MAHONEY, PRIESTLEY and POWELL JJA 6 June 1994, 26 October 1994

[1994] NSWCA 151

Workers Compensation — Repeated injuries to lumbar spine — Injuries both pre — and post — commencement of 1987 Act — How dealt with for purposes of claim under s66 — How dealt with for purposes of claim under s67. Workers Compensation Act 1987 Sch 6 Pt6 CL6.

Clutha Ltd v Danswan Court of Appeal 5th April 1993 unreported. New South Wales Department of Technical and Further Education v Pitt Court of Appeal 11th June 1993.

Mahoney JA I agree with Priestley JA and Powell JA that the Court should not override the decisions referred to by Powell JA. It was conceded that, if the Court was of that view, this appeal should be dismissed. I therefore agree with the orders proposed by Powell JA.

Priestley JA The circumstances of this case and the relevant statutory and case law are set out in the reasons of Powell JA.

As was conceded by counsel for the appellant, the appeal could not succeed unless this court were to overrule two of its recent decisions.

I see no reason why those earlier decisions should be disturbed. I would dismiss the appeal with costs.

Powell JA The Respondent, Mr Cox, who is now some 56 years of age, and who was, by occupation, a truck driver, was employed by the Appellant for a period of a little over 20 years between 1967 and June 1988.

Although, for the greater part of that period of 20 years, Mr Cox's employment appears to have been incident free, in a period of a little over 3 1/2 years, between April 1984 and November 1987, Mr Cox was involved in a number of incidents in the course of his employment, each of which incidents appears progressively to have aggravated, or exacerbated, then existing degenerative changes in Mr Cox's lumbar spine until, following the incident in November 1987, the stage was reached when Mr Cox was rendered totally incapacitated.