Australia, Aug. 26 -- New South Wales Land and Environment Court issued text of the following judgement on July 25:

1. By amended summons filed on 10 April 2025, the plaintiff, Insurance Australia Limited trading as NRMA Insurance (the insurer), seeks judicial review under s 69 of the Supreme Court Act 1970 (NSW) and this Court's inherent jurisdiction of the decision of the second defendant (the review panel) made on 19 December 2024. The aspect of the decision which is alleged to warrant its setting aside is the determination that the injury to the lumbar spine of the first defendant, James Cahill (the claimant) is a non-threshold injury.

2. At the conclusion of the hearing on 24 July 2025, I made the orders set out at the end of these reasons, including an order setting aside the decision of the review panel. What follows are my reasons for making these orders.

3. The insurer challenges the determination on the following grounds:

1) alleged failure to give adequate reasons; and

2) alleged denial of procedural fairness.

4. The claimant, the review panel and the third defendant, the President of the Personal Injury Commission of New South Wales (PIC) have each filed submitting appearances. There is, accordingly, no active defendant to the proceedings.

5. As the proceedings were commenced by summons filed on 18 March 2025, the insurer was within the time specified in Uniform Civil Procedure Rules 2005 (NSW), r 59.10(1), being 3 months from the date of the decision.

The statutory scheme

The Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 (NSW)

Before setting out the background to the current proceedings, I propose to outline the statutory scheme established by the Motor Accident Injuries Act 2017 (NSW) (the Act), which applies to motor accidents which occurred after 1 December 2017: s 1.8. Unless otherwise indicated, all references to legislation in these reasons are to the Act.

The claimant has no entitlement to damages if the only injuries he sustained in the accident were "threshold injuries": s 4.4.

Section 1.6 relevantly defines "threshold injury" as follows:

1.6 Meaning of "threshold injury"

(1) For the purposes of this Act, a threshold injury is, subject to this section, one or more of the following-

(a) a soft tissue injury,

(b) a psychological or psychiatric injury that is not a recognised psychiatric illness.

(2) A soft tissue injury is (subject to this section) an injury to tissue that connects, supports or surrounds other structures or organs of the body (such as muscles, tendons, ligaments, menisci, cartilage, fascia, fibrous tissues, fat, blood vessels and synovial membranes), but not an injury to nerves or a complete or partial rupture of tendons, ligaments, menisci or cartilage.

*Rest of the document can be viewed at: (https://www.caselaw.nsw.gov.au/decision/1983fa4380ecb3425d9d7c8f)

Disclaimer: Curated by HT Syndication.