On the eve of my hearing tomorrow [finally!] against the Accident Compensation Corporation (“ACC”) this appeared in today’s New Zealand Herald:

“An Auckland man has won his battle against ACC after a court found its specialist diagnosed degeneration without having looked at an MRI scan of the injury.”

Guess who the specialist was? The SAME one who did the SAME thing to ME: Mr Brian Otto. Déjà vu much?

Roll on tomorrow. Please pray for justice to prevail. I’ll update with the results as soon as I have them, which is unlikely to be tomorrow and more likely to be within 28 days.

UPDATE:
I lost. The reasoning in the judgment is poor and does not follow. In my opinion the law was poorly applied. The hearing was issued by a tribunal run by ACC. A recent legislative change now sees these tribunals run independently but my case was heard prior to this coming into effect.

Because the tribunal felt that my appeal was brought on a good faith basis I was awarded some costs and my law firm, John Miller Law, have generously written off their costs (aren’t they awesome!) so this round did not cost me the $4,000 I expected it to, it only cost me $850 in the end.

So, because of the surprise my lawyers expressed at losing, coupled with my own surprise – both of us being fully aware of the facts, evidence and the law along with the knowledge we were not before an arbitrator who was independent and, in my opinion, said arbitrator was deficit in her legal reasoning, combined with the fact we have been generously donated $2,500 towards fighting ACC and have only spent $850 of it and because of the principles at stake and, finally, because of the raft of people being treated the same way – wrongfully being deemed to have degenerative pre-existing conditions following injuries sustained by accidents – who lack the means to fight ACC, I have instructed my lawyer to file an appeal in the very independent District Court. When I get a court date I will let you all know!

If you want to donate to the ACC war fund, I am warned the court costs could rise to $8,000 – I have thus far paid $1850 towards the appeal – please use the Pay Pal widget in the side bar and tag the donation something to do with ACC or refer to our Support page.

Tags:   ACC · Brian Otto · Car Accident10 Comments