Case: Repatriation Commission v Deledio (1988) 83 FCR 82
Outcome: discussed
In Repatriation Commission v Deledio (1988) 83 FCR 82, the Full Court (Beaumont Hill and O'Connor JJ) at 97-98 set out the four steps required of the AAT in circumstances such as the present. They are commonly called now the Deledio steps. The first required it to determine whether upon all the material, it pointed to a hypothesis connecting Hill's alcohol dependence with the circumstances of his operational service. That step having been answered affirmatively, the second step was to determine if there was an applicable SOP in force. There was: Alcohol Dependence or Alcohol Abuse SOP (Instrument 76 of 1998) (the AD SOP). The third step was to determine whether the hypothesis fitted the "template" in the AD SOP, that is whether it was consistent with it. The fourth step then was to apply s 120(1), and as the AAT recognised, it is only at the fourth step that it was required to find facts from the material before it. 57 There were two hypotheses put forward on behalf of Mr Hill which were said to fit the AD SOP. One was that he had a psychiatric disorder, namely alcohol intoxication, while serving in Vietnam which was the precursor to his alcohol dependence or which was the precursor to the clinical worsening of his alcohol dependence. Clauses 4 and 5 of the AD SOP provide: Factors that must be related to service 4. Subject to clause 6, at least one of the factors set out in clause 5 must be related to any relevant service rendered by the person. Factors 5. The factors that must as a minimum exist before it can be said that a reasonable hypothesis has been raised connecting alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse or death from alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse with the circumstances of a person's relevant service are: (a) suffering from a psychiatric disorder at the time of the clinical onset of alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse; or (b) experiencing a severe stressor within the two years immediately before the clinical onset of alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse; or (c) suffering from a psychiatric disorder at the time of the clinical worsening of alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse; or (d) experiencing a severe stressor within the two years immediately before the clinical worsening of alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse; or (e) inability to obtain appropriate clinical management for alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse. The term "psychiatric disorder" is defined in cl 8 of the AD SOP as meaning "any Axis 1 or 2 disorder of mental health attracting a diagnosis under DSM IV". 58 The AAT, after reviewing the medical and other evidence, said that it pointed to hypotheses either that Mr Hill had the condition of alcohol intoxication prior to the clinical onset or the clinical worsening of alcohol dependence. As the AAT considered alcohol intoxication to be a psychiatric disorder, the hypothesis met either cl 5(a) or cl 5(c) of the AD SOP. 104 In Mines v Repatriation Commission (2004) 86 ALD 62, Gray J after referring to the Full Court decisions I mentioned in [44] above said at 74, [48]: It is therefore clear that the question whether a veteran is suffering, or has suffered, a claimed injury or disease must be determined to the reasonable satisfaction of the decision-maker, that is, on the balance of probabilities. That question is not to be determined by asking whether there is a reasonable hypothesis that the veteran is suffering, or has suffered, the injury or disease and asking whether the material establishes that the facts supporting that hypothesis do not exist beyond reasonable doubt. If the question is posed as whether a veteran has suffered PTSD as a result of a traumatic event said to have occurred during the veteran's operational service, it must be answered by saying that the decision-maker must be reasonably satisfied that the traumatic event occurred before reaching the conclusion that the veteran suffered PTSD. Only if such a conclusion is reached does the reasonable hypothesis process of reasoning, outlined in the four steps referred to in Deledio , come into operation.