Medical Appeal Tribunal IIDB

Have picked up an Industrial Injuries benefit in which recent (new claim) for benefit went to appeal. The written reasons stated an original decision made by a MAT in 1990 was seriously flawed. The client’s level of disablement was assessed as less than 14% for 3 years so no payment and claim ended in 1993; client did not challenge.
Is the MAT decision the same as a FTT decision? in which case not much hope to challenge or could we request an any time review of decision (assuming we have grounds - haven’t gone through bundle in too much detail yet)

Can think of a couple of problems you might have there.

Reg 59 of and Schedule 4 to the Social Security and Child Support D&A Regs 1999 revoked all previous adjudication rules with very limited transitional arrangements: Reg 59 basically said that any reference to the old rules should be read as a reference to the equivalent provision under the new D&A Regs.  That means, I think, that an “any time” revision of a decision by an Adjudication 0fficer made before 1999 is possible in principle and the modern rules apply.  But this is not a decision of an AO: it’s a decision of an MAT, which in turn must be read as a decision of a Tribunal under the D&A regime.  The UT has said that a local authority may not revise a decision that has been to the Tribunal, even if the original decision was confirmed: the operative decision becomes a decision of the Tribunal irrespective of the outcome and is no longer a “relevant decision” of the LA. By way of contrast, decisions of both the LA and the Tribunal may be superseded.  In the SSA 1998 there is a similar distinction between the power to revise a decision under s9, which only applies to decisions of the Secretary of State, and to supersede under s10, which also applies to Tribunal decisions.

What I think all that means is that it is not possible for the Secretary of State to revise a decision of the Tribunal in 1990 even if the “any time” grounds were made out.

That would leave the option of an out of time application for permission to appeal to the UT, or for the Tribunal decision to be set aside.  There is no absolute upper limit for these actions, but s9 of the Limitation Act 1980 arguably imposes a six-year cut-off (recovery of sums due under statute).  The Valuation Tribunal has relied on that to limit arrears of Council Tax discounts.  Maybe there is some room for interpretation there: I think it’s the only option.

As per Anorak, although I’m unsure about the Limitation Act point. The LA is concerned with setting deadlines for when actions can be brought- your client, I think, “brought” the action in 1990 when he went to the MAT.  You are concerned now with the appeal rights that emerge from the MAT decision which are, I would suggest, only subject to the usual statutory and procedural rules.

You would still need to convince the UT to extend the deadlines by some 25 years - might be tricky to say the least.