Double-up the specialist costs at review
The Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation (Review Costs and Appeals) Amendment Regulations 2010 confirms the amount a reviewer may award in relation to specialists report used at review, as follows:
Item: All relevant and reasonably necessary reports for applicant or another person by any registered specialists.
Maximum Award ($): 935.54
- It has long been debated whether the noted cost regulation should be interpreted as allowing a reviewer to award costs for:
Each and every specialist report. In other words, where four specialists reports are obtained at the individual cost of $1,500.00 per report whether one should then allow $935.54 for each of the four reports, totalling $3,742.16; or - Whether the regulations only allowed a reviewer to award one payment of $935.54 for all the specialists’ reports collectively.
The District Court in Anderson v ACC [2016] NZACC 164 at [78] has now shed some light on this vexed question noting the following :
… Specifically, pursuant to the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation (Review Costs and Appeals) Regulations 2002, “All relevant and reasonably necessary reports for applicant … by any registered specialists” are entitled to a maximum award of $935.54. Quite clearly, the maximum award must relate to each report prepared rather than the maximum that the specialist is entitled to with regard to the totality of their involvement in a review…