Northern Ireland - Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions

[1996] NISSCSC C3/96(IVB) (11 February 1997)

 


Decision No: C3/96(IVB)

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION (NORTHERN IRELAND) ACT 1992

SOCIAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTIONS AND BENEFITS

(NORTHERN IRELAND) ACT 1992

SOCIAL SECURITY (CONSEQUENTIAL PROVISIONS)

(NORTHERN IRELAND) ACT 1992

INVALIDITY BENEFIT

Appeal to the Social Security Commissioner

on a question of law from the decision of

Lurgan Social Security Appeal Tribunal

dated 6 March 1996

DECISION OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER

1. In this case the claimant appeals against the decision of Lurgan Social Security Appeal Tribunal; whereby it was held that he was not entitled to invalidity benefit from and including 15 December 1994.
2. The grounds of the appeal were set out in a letter from the claimant dated 26 April 1996 which accompanied his notice of application. The letter did not in my view specify any ground upon which it was alleged that the Appeal Tribunal's decision was or might be erroneous in point of law; but merely asserted that, in the light of the available medical evidence, the decision was wrong. Leave to appeal was, however, granted by the Tribunal Chairman.
3. The Adjudication Officer's written observations on the appeal were as follows:-

"The Tribunal decided that Mr Mc... was capable of suitable

alternative employment such as telephone operator, petrol pump

attendant, telephone salesman, messenger and photocopying machine

operator.

Mr Mc... does not appear to have identified any point of law

in which the Tribunal may have erred. The Tribunal in arriving

at its decision appears to have given due consideration to all

the evidence before them and the hearing appears to have ranged

comprehensively over all aspects of the case. I therefore submit

that the Tribunal's decision was one which they were entitled to

reach on the evidence before them.

For the above reasons, I therefore oppose Mr Mc...'s appeal."

4. The claimant's response to an invitation to comment upon the Adjudication Officer's written observations took the form of a lengthy letter dated 4 October 1996 from his solicitors, Messrs T S( & Company of , Belfast, in which the facts of the case were set out in some detail. It was pointed out that the first hearing of the appeal had been adjourned to enable further medical evidence to be obtained and it was submitted that the additional medical report had failed to clarify the issue of the claimant's capacity for work. It was said that, on the basis of the available evidence, the Tribunal had erred in law in that their decision was one which no Tribunal, acting judicially and applying the relevant law, could reasonably have reached. In support of that submission reliance, was placed upon the decisions of the Northern Ireland Commissioner in R1/76(IVB) and the GB Commissioners in R(S)11/51 and CS/90/1986, and arguments were advanced as to why, in the opinion of the writer, the Tribunal should have found as a fact that the claimant was incapable of work.
5. My first comment upon this appeal is that the Tribunal's decision must be judged upon its own merits; regardless of the fact that another Tribunal had, on a previous occasion, considered it appropriate to seek additional evidence. As was pointed out at the commencement of the hearing on 6 March 1996, "this was a newly constituted Tribunal which would consider all questions of law and fact." The task of the new Tribunal was to decide whether, on the evidence at their disposal, it had been established on the balance of the probabilities that the claimant was not incapable of work throughout the period in question, and the fact that a previous Tribunal had experienced difficulty in deciding that issue was quite irrelevant. I would also point out that the Commissioners' decisions to which the claimant's solicitors have referred all date back to a time when there was an appeal to the Commissioner on the merits of the case as well as on the law. Since April 1987 an appeal to the Commissioner has lain only on the ground that the decision of the Appeal Tribunal was erroneous in point of law, and earlier decisions which concern findings of fact must be approached with caution. In this instance I accept that it may well have been difficult for the Tribunal to decide whether or not the Adjudication Officer had discharged the onus of proving that the claimant was not incapable of work; but it was for them to decide that issue, and the Commissioner has no power to intervene unless the decision was perverse in the sense that it was one which, on the evidence, no Tribunal could reasonably have reached. It was, as I have said, a difficult case and had it been my decision I might well have come to a different conclusion. Nevertheless I find myself unable to say that, on all the evidence at their disposal and having had the opportunity of seeing and hearing the claimant for themselves, the decision of the Appeal Tribunal in this instance was perverse. Having considered all aspects of the case my conclusion is that the Tribunal's decision was not erroneous in point of law in any respect, and I accordingly dismiss this appeal.

(Signed): R R Chambers

CHIEF COMMISSIONER

11 February 1997