SAMARA v FRANKLINS LTD [1998] NSWCA 200

SAMARA v FRANKLINS LTD SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

MEAGHER, SHELLER JJA and FITZGERALD AJA 14 September 1998, 8 October 1998

[1998] NSWCA 200

WORKER'S compensation action — failure of trial judge to discharge duty to give adequate reasons for decision — error of law — Compensation Court Act subs32(1).

Meagher JA In this matter, when the applicant was presenting what would prima facie appear to be an unlikely claim, when there was a cascade of medical reports no two of which were in agreement with each other, when there was no cross-examination of any expert, and when there was a major dispute as to whether at the date of trial the applicant was suffering from any health-related consequences at all, his Honour dismissed the applicant's claim.

What his Honour said relevantly was:

"The applicant bears the onus of proving her case. She has the responsibility, on the balance of probability, of persuading me that the condition which she now suffers is truly related, in a relevant sense, to the injury sustained in April 1995. She has not met that onus of proof I am not persuaded she has demonstrated, on the balance of probability, that her present condition is related as I do not know what that present condition might be."

Although the language encasing this fairly unambiguous conclusion certainly lacks elegance and probably, (as Fitzgerald AJA points out) coherence as well, the conclusion itself is clear, and justified by the evidence. His Honour is saying that he was not, on the balance of probabilities, satisfied that the medical problems of the applicant (whatever they were) had any connection with her injury. To say that the reasons are inadequate seems slightly ludicrous; if a judge finds that a fact does not exist, he can never be obliged to say anything more than that it does not exist.