Judgment No. 4709
Decision
The complaint is dismissed.
Summary
The complainant challenges the refusal to recognise her illness as attributable to official duty.
Judgment keywords
Keywords
illness; service-incurred; complaint dismissed
Consideration 3
Extract:
[T]he Tribunal observes that the complainant’s claims concerning the report of the Compensation Committee as such must be dismissed as irreceivable since the opinion issued by an advisory body of that kind is merely a preparatory step in the process of reaching the decision taken on the basis of that opinion and does not itself cause injury to the complainant (see, for example, Judgment 4464, consideration 10).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 4464
Keywords
advisory body; administrative decision
Consideration 4
Extract:
[T]he Tribunal recalls that, according to consistent precedent, it may not replace the opinion of medical experts or a of committee dealing with medical cases, such as a compensation committee, with its own assessment. However, it does have full competence to say whether there was due process and to examine whether the opinion delivered by the committee in question shows any material mistake or inconsistency, overlooks some essential fact or plainly misreads the evidence (see, in particular, Judgments 4473, consideration 13, 3994, consideration 5, 2996, consideration 11, 2361, consideration 9, and 1284, consideration 4).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1284, 2361, 2996, 3994, 4473
Keywords
illness; medical board; judicial review; role of the tribunal
Consideration 5
Extract:
[T]he complainant takes issue with the fact that she was not provided with the Medical Adviser’s opinion on her compensation claim before that opinion was submitted to the Compensation Committee, which did not allow her to obtain any comments that her treating physicians may have wished to make on it. She regards this as a breach of the adversarial principle. However, the Tribunal considers that the opinion, drawn up for the Committee by one of its members to serve as a basis for its deliberations, is by its nature an internal working document which, in the absence of provisions requiring it to be disclosed to the parties, need not be communicated to the staff member concerned. Thus, while the complainant was entitled to have access to the Medical Adviser’s opinion afterwards – it being noted that this right was observed, as the submissions show that the document in question was sent to her on 21 January 2020 at her request – she has no grounds to submit that she should have received a copy of it before the Committee drew up its recommendations.
Keywords
disclosure of evidence; adversarial proceedings
Consideration 6
Extract:
[I]t should be recalled that, as the Tribunal stated in Judgment 1752, consideration 6, the Compensation Committee “is just an advisory body, not a court of law” and that the safeguards offered by the rules governing its workings should be assessed in the light of the requirements applicable to such a body.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1752
Keywords
advisory body; medical board
Consideration 9
Extract:
Under the Tribunal’s case law, the standard of proof applicable in recognising that an illness is service-incurred is indeed that of the balance of probabilities (see, for example, Judgments 3111, consideration 6, 1971, consideration 15, 1373, consideration 16, and 528, considerations 4 and 5). As that case law sometimes frames it in another manner, it is enough for there to be “a causal link in the legal sense, that is to say, some fairly definite connection” between the diagnosed condition and the alleged occupational origin for a condition to be accepted as service-incurred (see Judgments 3111, consideration 6, and 641, consideration 8).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 528, 641, 1373, 1971, 3111
Keywords
illness; service-incurred; standard of proof
Consideration 10
Extract:
[U]nder the Tribunal’s case law, where an illness has several possible causes – which is by definition the case of such a hearing loss, according to the scientific literature cited by the Medical Adviser – and only one or some of those causes are related to the complainant’s employment, there is no reason to recognise it as service-incurred unless those causes are shown to be the determining factor (see, in particular, Judgments 3111, considerations 3, 6 and 7, and 1752, consideration 9).
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 1752, 3111
Keywords
illness; service-incurred
Consideration 12
Extract:
[T]he Tribunal observes that, under the compensation scheme applicable in the event of illness attributable to official duty established by Article 8.3 of the Staff Regulations, which is the sole legal basis for the complainant’s compensation claim, the ILO incurs strict liability when such an illness is recognised but is not held negligent. While the award of compensation under this scheme does not rule out the possibility that the Organization may also be accused of negligence, the question of whether it is liable on that other basis is in principle a separate dispute (see, for example, Judgments 4222, consideration 15, 3946, consideration 17, and 3111, consideration 8). Consequently, the complainant is not in any event entitled, in the present case, to submit for the first time before the Tribunal claims based on the existence of such negligence.
Reference(s)
ILOAT Judgment(s): 3111, 3946, 4222
Keywords
illness; service-incurred; compensation
Consideration 13
Extract:
[T]he complainant claims damages for the length and complexity of the procedures conducted in respect of her compensation claim [...].
However, the Tribunal notes that the complainant has already been awarded compensation of 2,500 Swiss francs for the length of the first procedure in the decision of 19 July 2019 and that the second procedure was conducted within a period of some four months, which cannot be regarded as inordinate in view of the time required for the Committee to undertake a rigorous and thorough examination of the case. In the circumstances, the Tribunal considers that the complainant has not established that she has suffered under this head an injury warranting additional compensation [...].
Keywords
time limit; delay in internal procedure
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