ACC urged to 'do the right thing'

After a recent appeal decision, Dunedin ACC campaigner Denise Powell is urging ACC to "do the right thing" by reinstating compensation payments to about 170 people, including sexual abuse victims.

However, ACC spokesman Laurie Edwards says it will not be reinstating the payments, ended last year, until there is further clarification of the law involving claimants who became incapacitated in later employment by an earlier injury they received when they were non-earners.

ACC is seeking leave to appeal to the High Court over the key points of law involved in the recent Dominique Vandy versus ACC appeal decision, in which Judge Martin Beattie, sitting at the Hamilton District Court, found the previously-injured claimant had weekly compensation coverage.

Judge Beattie upheld the appeal by Ms Vandy, who received shoulder and hip injuries when she fell from a horse at age 12, while a non-earner, in 2003.

Continuing problems linked to her earlier hip injury had resulted in her having to leave her subsequent work as a retail store sales assistant early last year.

The latest case again highlights an apparent long-standing anomaly in part of a section in ACC legislation, which appears to exclude providing weekly compensation coverage for claimants who are incapacitated in their later employment by an earlier injury received when they were non-earners.

Mrs Powell, who is president of ACC claimant support group Acclaim Otago, said the Vandy case highlighted the "ridiculous situation" of some incapacitated workers being denied what had been intended to be universal injury coverage under the ACC scheme.

ACC had last year taken a "mean-spirited" approach by removing injured claimants, including some childhood sexual abuse victims, from cover.

At least 10 claimants in Otago are believed to be affected.

Acclaim Otago says the earlier ACC decision to end the payments was a cost-saving move, but ACC denies this.

Mr Edwards also rejected any suggestions that ACC had been ungenerous or mean-spirited in ending payments last year.

This decision had been made as a result of an earlier Giltrap District Court appeal finding in 2006, in which Judge David Ongley ruled against cover for a previously-injured claimant.

Despite the apparent anomaly in the law, ACC had, in fact, provided cover in this situation for many years after adopting a special policy, and had not ended payments until at least two years after the earlier Giltrap case appeal decision.

ACC was doing the right thing by seeking leave to go to the High Court so the legal issues could be resolved, given there were now two District Court appeal findings of equal standing which had reached different conclusions.

Dunedin lawyer Peter Sara, said social justice had been done in the Beattie judgement, which had involved "quite a significant development in law".

In his decision, Judge Beattie noted the Court of Appeal had stated provisions of ACC legislation "should be given a generous and unniggardly interpretation".

Mr Sara said ACC itself had been ungenerous in ending the payments.

john.gibb@odt.co.nz