Case: Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation Ltd [1947] EWCA Civ 1 ; [1948] 1 KB 223
Outcome: cited
Next, under this ground, it is said that the decision of the Tribunal in matter N2004/1410 that the applicant was not entitled to compensation attributable to the nature and conditions of his employment is so inconsistent with the evidence as to be Wednesbury unreasonable. This is particularised in the following way: The Tribunal found the following: (i) That Dr Griffith and Dr Wong were of the opinion that the work place was implicated in the applicant's present condition [99]; (ii) That Dr Dalton concluded that the nature and conditions of the applicant's employment involved physical activities which quite reasonably could have aggravated the underlying degenerative condition [99]; (iii) That Dr Griffith also opined that he agreed with Dr Dalton that had the applicant's employment been office based he would have been less likely to have suffered a disc lesion as an aggravation to the degenerative changes in the applicant's spine [100]; The Tribunal then went on at [101] to decide that it was satisfied from the medical evidence, which it had discussed in [99] and [100], that the impairment of the applicant was not attributable to the nature and conditions of the applicant's employment and at [102] that the Tribunal was not satisfied that the available evidence established an entitlement to compensation on the basis of the nature and conditions of the applicant's employment with the respondent. 50 The applicant essentially asserts that there was no evidence which supported the Tribunal's decision that the applicant's impairment was a result of the natural progression of the applicant's lumbar spine and was not attributable to the nature and conditions of his employment. 51 That assertion wrongly presumes, however, that the only evidence relied upon by the Tribunal in arriving at that decision was that referred to in [96] [100] of the Tribunal's reasons for decision. The content of what was said by the Tribunal in [101] of its reasons for decision denies that presumption and evidence capable of supporting the Tribunal's conclusion was referred to in the Tribunal's reasons at [64], [69], [71] [74], [76] and, especially at [93]. 52 The giving by a tribunal of allegedly inadequate weight to certain matters and undue weight to others does not, itself, establish a case of unreasonableness of the kind referred to in Associated Provincial Picture Houses Ltd v Wednesbury Corporation Ltd [1947] EWCA Civ 1 ; [1948] 1 KB 223; Minister for Immigration &amp; Multicultural Affairs v Eshetu [1999] HCA 21 ; (1999) 197 CLR 611; Minister for Aboriginal Affairs v Peko-Wallsend Ltd [1986] HCA 40 ; (1986) 162 CLR 24. 53 A decision will be vitiated by Wednesbury unreasonableness, unless no decision-maker, acting reasonably, could have made that decision or it is shown that the decision was so unreasonable that no reasonable person could have come to it. In applying this standard a court must proceed with caution lest it exceed its supervisory role by reviewing the decision on the merits: Minister for Aboriginal Affairs v Peko-Wallsend Ltd at 41 42, per Mason J; Attorney-General (NSW) v Quin [1990] HCA 21 ; (1990) 170 CLR 1 at 36 37, per Brennan J. It is not enough to show that another decision-maker might have reached a different result or even that the Court takes the view that a different decision would have been more appropriate: Eshetu at 626 627, per Gleeson CJ and McHugh J; 'Friends of Hinchinbrook Society Inc v Minister for Environment (No. 2) (1997) 69 FCR 28 at 59 65, per Sackville J.