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DLA Failure to Disclose Overpayment Recoverable Tribunal

Holly1989
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Hi,

Does anyone know of any case law where someone (who is not the appointee) has informed DWP via telephone that Client is in hospital?

DWP have not acted upon disclosure of information on telephone call. 

Thanks

Holly

Andyp5 Citizens Advice Bridport & District
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  Commissioner Mesher held in CDLA/6336/1999 paragraph 18 ‘In my judgement it is plain that the Tribunal of Commissioners intended that principle to extend not just to cases where the claimant personally gave information, but also to cases under paragraph 29 where another person gave the information. This, in the present case condition (a) in paragraph 29 would be satisfied if documents were sent to the local office in circumstances which would make it reasonable for the person giving the relevant information to think it would be passed on to the DLA unit’.

Copy and pasted the extract above from an anonymised sub from a previous workplace haven’t got a copy to hand, may be of help.

Daphne
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Here you are CDLA/6336/1999

Mike Hughes
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I’ve a nagging suspicion there was a Mesher or Rowland decision after this which clarified it further and stated that the claimant could not be a passive delegant.

HB Anorak
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The extract above is directly concerned with a Hinchy-type argument: noting that a claimant might reasonably form the impression that DWP Office A (not dealing with the DLA claim) would pass to Office B relevant information provided by the claimant to Office A, the Commissioner is saying that the claimant might also reasonably form such an impression when they have arranged for someone else to inform Office A on their behalf.  The main issue in that case was that the information apparently didn’t reach Office B.

OP’s case might be something different: if the phone call was made to the DLA office, the argument then is what caused the overpayment.  Section 71 says the overpayment is recoverable if it is made “in consequence of” the claimant’s failure to disclose.  The overpayment in this case is caused by the DWP’s failure to act on information provided - irrespective of how they came by that information.  It doesn’t make any difference whether they failed to act on information provided by the claimant personally or by someone else speaking for the claimant.

Andyp5 Citizens Advice Bridport & District
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HB Anorak - 13 April 2017 11:07 AM

The extract above is directly concerned with a Hinchy-type argument: noting that a claimant might reasonably form the impression that DWP Office A (not dealing with the DLA claim) would pass to Office B relevant information provided by the claimant to Office A, the Commissioner is saying that the claimant might also reasonably form such an impression when they have arranged for someone else to inform Office A on their behalf.  The main issue in that case was that the information apparently didn’t reach Office B.

OP’s case might be something different: if the phone call was made to the DLA office, the argument then is what caused the overpayment.  Section 71 says the overpayment is recoverable if it is made “in consequence of” the claimant’s failure to disclose.  The overpayment in this case is caused by the DWP’s failure to act on information provided - irrespective of how they came by that information.  It doesn’t make any difference whether they failed to act on information provided by the claimant personally or by someone else speaking for the claimant.

I take your point re extract above, but the post was regarding disclosure made by someone other than the claimant, hence the flagging up of the case law from dim recollection on my part via an extract from an old sub (regarding Mike’s point about possible subsequent caselaw negating it, i haven’t a clue), but paragraphs 17 and 18 read in full arguably do chime with some elements of your last point regarding OP’s case.

[ Edited: 13 Apr 2017 at 06:12 pm by Andyp5 Citizens Advice Bridport & District ]
nevip
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Mike is right.  Later case law concerned the issue of continuing disclosure.  When someone, on behalf of the claimant, other than an appointee, disclosed, then the claimant was under a duty to check whether that disclosure had been acted upon

[ Edited: 14 Apr 2017 at 12:57 am by nevip ]
Andyp5 Citizens Advice Bridport & District
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nevip - 14 April 2017 12:53 AM

Mike is right.  Later case law concerned the issue of continuing disclosure.  When someone, on behalf of the claimant, other than an appointee, disclosed, then the claimant was under a duty to check whether that disclosure had been acted upon

Mike invariably is!

Mike Hughes
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Adds voice to the “Come on Shawn where’s the “Like” button?” campaign :)

If we can’t have that can we have “unwarranted sarcasm” and “possibly warranted sarcasm” buttons :)

I used to have copies of the subsequent decisions but once things became paperless they disappeared.

Holly1989
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Thanks for your help all!