On 2 July 2019, the Administrative Appeals Tribunal found that an employee was no longer suffering from injuries for which Comcare had previously accepted liability. Therefore, the Tribunal found that compensation was not payable under ss 16 and 19 of the Safety, Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 1988 (Cth) (the Act) and affirmed the decisions under review.

In making its decision, the Tribunal also found that certain observations of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia in Prain v Comcare (2017) 256 FCR 65 applied, mutatis mutandis, to the “material degree” test in the former definition of “disease” in the Act.

See the Tribunal’s decision – cited as Re Kearns and Comcare (Compensation) [2019] AATA 1631 – online here: http://www.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/AATA//2019/1631.html.