Conflicting opinion PIP v WCA and risk to award.

I have a client whose WCA appeal was disallowed. The Tribunal decided not to adjourn for a copy of a PIP report as it felt this would be irrelevant due to date of claim etc. This is potentially challengeable. Client might, therefore, get decision set aside, appeal re-heard and PIP report requested.
Leaving aside arguments about ability to use a wheelchair, PIP says cannot walk more than 50 metres WCA says can walk more than 200.
Has anyone ever come across a situation where losing a WCA appeal leads to PIP looking again at it’s decision?
Thanks in advance.

Did you go into the grounds of the PIP award and why it was relevant to the UC award during the appeal/hearing? I wouldn’t expect the tribunal to intrinsically disbelieve what you/the appellant said the PIP report contained. More likely they refused the adjournment because they didn’t think it was relevant - if there was an issue around the ‘date of claim’ I’m guessing there is a suggestion there has been a CiC that your client’s health has improved?

On your question re DWP looking at the PIP award again: Yes, it will be evidence available to DWP like any other, and might prompt them to look to at it again.

I wasn’t involved in the appeal. Client has approached us for help with possible permission to appeal to the UTT.
According to the statement of reasons FTT decided not to adjourn for PIP report as written several months after WCA decision. FTT knew what the PIP award was, just felt is wasn’t relevant due to time it was written.
Although there are possible grounds to apply for permission to appeal, the likely outcome is another hearing and my fear is that the WCA decision on mobility may be more accurate that the PIP decision (although I don’t know for sure) and there is a potential risk to the PIP award.
I have never come across an adverse Tribunal decision on one benefit impacting on another in this kind of scenario but I’m conscious it is not impossible. Just wondered how often it actually happens based on the experience of others.

Both the PIP and WCA evidence is already available to DWP. If either of them indicate the other award should be lower then DWP can act on that. Nothing you do in terms of the WCA appeal can impact that (save a new tribunal unearthing something significant, but that’d be surprising given there has already been a hearing).

I suppose the tribunal could write in their grounds that they don’t attach weight to the PIP report because they think the appellant in fact does NOT meet the criteria for PIP either, but that would be a fair bit of a leap and not something I think you should worry about unless you question this yourself, and in which case: should you be supporting your client with an appeal at all?

Whether their argument on the timing issue is relevant comes down to the health condition(s) - i.e. is it reasonable to conclude that something changed between the two decisions? If the relevant condition is, say, a back injury that occurred before the WCA decision, then that conclusion seems illogical. If the relevant condition is a degenerative one, then they may well have come to cross a threshold between decisions, and so on.