• The WA Insurance Commission will withhold, as standard practice, ALL expert and/or medical evidence that supports a claimant's case.
• How the Insurance Commission of WA instructs and allows its lawyers to argue a case which it knows is not correct, including false accusations and claims with the purpose to mislead and misinform the judge.
• That 90% of large claims are forced to go before a judge for settlement, although in many cases, ICWA could settle these cases but refuses to do so.
• That by "sub contracting" the decision out to the courts, ICWA circumvents the rules, purpose, intent and values which are outlined in its corporate Statement of Intent and the Insurance Commission Act of 1986. The most important of these rules is the requirement that ICWA must consider ALL the available expert evidence when settling a claim. This requirement is also outlined in ICWA's own Guidelines for Injured Third Party Victims of Motor Vehicle Accidents.
• That the public servants/case managers at ICWA who are responsible for handling a claim and who analyze and judge the expert medical evidence have no medical training or qualifications to fulfill such an important position.
• How organizations such as the WA Ombudsman actively protects organizations such as ICWA from criticism or consequences instead of protecting the public from the excesses of these organizations.
• How organizations such as the Insurance Commission of Western Australia and the Ombudsman of Western Australia try to use Australian privacy legislation to suppress exactly what was discussed and said by public servants during official meetings and phone conversations with members of the public. 
• How the Ombudsman of Western Australi, tries to prevent disclosure of the questionable contents of his official decisions by threatening prosecution under the Parliamentary Commissioner Act of 1971.
• That when the courts are not given ALL the available evidence, their decisions become nothing more than arbitrary.
• That hte judge assigned to hear a claim is based on the luck of the draw and none of the judges have any medical training and possibly no experience in personal injury law.
• The press is powerless to publish the contents of the transcripts and audio recordings because the public services and its public servants right to privacy when officially communicating with a member of the public, ie you or me. Sounds ridiculous when you read it, doesn't it!

In my case, The Insurance Commission called only a single witness to give testimony at trial. This was a medical report the Insurance Commission obtained from the brother of the Insurance Commission Case Manager responsible for my claim, John Langton. It is interesting to note that this doctor never reviewed me in person and yet it was the only medical report that the Insurance Commission was able to obtain which was critical of my claim.

ICWA had previously sent me to numerous medical experts from various fields who examined and reviewed me in person and all these reports were very supportive of my claim and left no doubt that the motor vehicle accident was responsible for me not being able to return to my profession as an airline pilot. In formulating their reports these independent experts restricted their answers to the questions that they received in writing from the law firm that represented ICWA - Talbot & Olivier - and they furthermore restricted themselves to their area of expertise e.g. Cardiology, Aviation Medicine, Orthopedic Surgery, Occupational Health and Psychiatry. They took into consideration all expert opinions they had received from my medical experts.

However, in the report ICWA obtained from the brother (Dr Paul Langton, Cardiologist) of the responsible ICWA Case Manager John Langton, this was not the case. The doctor not only answered the four questions outlined in the letter he had received from ICWA lawyers; he went on to answer questions that he was not asked. He also put forward a number of alternative causes to my symptoms which required him to give an expert opinion on everything from Psychiatry, Aviation Medicine, occupational Health and Orthopedic Surgery. In every other report ICWA had obtained from other medical experts, the experts always referred questions which were outside their area of expertise to the an expert in that field. This was not the case in the report ICWA had obtained from the brother of the Case Manager responsible for my claim. I have been told by doctors that, as a general rule, doctors giving expert reports are advised by the AMA (Australian Medical Association) that they should restrict their reports to their own area of expertise; in his case this would have been cardiology. Furthermore, the court rules for expert witnesses state that the role of an expert witness is to assist the judge and not represent the interest of the party whom they compiled their report for.

During cross examination this doctor was examined in detail as to who from ICWA or elsewhere was involved in instructing (briefing) him before he compiled his report. This was very important as my lawyers were interested in understanding why he would answer questions he was not asked and why he gave expert opinions in areas outside of his dedicated specialty of cardiology and the particular aspect of not having reviewed me in person.

In addition, it was unusual that he never took into account or quoted any of the other expert reports ICWA had obtained from experts in these other fields which all supported my claim. The question as to whether he had been influenced or possibly briefed by someone with a vested interest in the case was critical. If it had become known that he had discussed the case or received instructions from his brother before compiling his report, it would have put his entire report into question. As he was the only medical expert being called by ICWA to give testimony in support of the Insurance Commission, it would normally have been disregarded due to the conflict of interest and possible lack of objectivity. ICWA's sole argument for taking my claim to trial was the report they had obtained from this one doctor. Without it, ICWA's CEO Vic Evans confirms, ICWA had no case as all of ICWA's other experts supported my claim.

In a letter from ICWA’s CEO, Vic Evans dated the 12 January 2011, he answered my question as to why ICWA took my case to trial and wrote; As promised, I now formally confirm that the Insurance Commission’s position in defending your claim was that the atrial fibrillation and psychological problems, which you were diagnosed with, were matters that remained “in Issue” because we questioned their casual relationship to your motor vehicle accident. It is important to note that my "atrial fibrillation" had been cured by two ablation procedures in late 2003 and early 2004.

Additionally the "psychological problems" had, according to ICWA's own psychiatric report from Dr. Peter McCarthy,  developed as a direct result of the MVA. Mr. Vic Evans' statement is based solely on the report from ICWA's Case Manager's brother (Dr Paul Langton) who had never reviewed me in person or spoken to me. Without the report from his (Mr. Vic Evans/ICWA) Case Manager's brother (Dr. Paul Langton) ICWA would have had no "expert" evidence to support an “issue” and in the words of ICWA's CEO Vic Evans, ICWA would have had no case to take to court.

Since the trial in April/May 200, the following three statements have been made to the question as to who briefed/instructed the brother:

Example 1 - Excerpt from the Official Trial Transcript:

(Question Barrister Theo Lampropoulos SC) - No discussions with any non‑medical people about the relevant background circumstances?‑‑‑(Answer Dr Langton) - None whatsoever.

(Question Barrister Theo Lampropoulos SC) - None whatsoever.  I see.  And you can't offer any – you don't know at all why you were selected in particular ‑ ‑ ‑?

(Answer Dr Langton) - You may be ‑ ‑ ‑

‑ ‑ ‑ by Talbot Olivier?‑‑‑

(Answer Dr Langton) - You may be alluding to someone that works for an insurance company who knows of me, but the only discussions I've had with extraneous people is, "Would you be prepared to offer a case?"

(Question Barrister Theo Lampropolous SC) - And the person that you talk about that – who's employed by some insurance company, is that the person named in the second paragraph, John Langton from Insurance Commission of Western Australia?‑‑‑

(Answer Dr Langton) - Yes, indeed. 

(Question Barrister Theo Lampropolous SC) - Who is in fact your brother?‑‑‑

(Answer Dr Langton) - Correct.

Example 2 - Written reply from Dr. Langton dated the 8 February 2012

Dr. Langton now states - "I had a brief telephone conversation with my brother Mr John Langton during which he asked me whether, in my opinion, the condition of atrial fibrillation would potentially restrict or otherwise interfere with a pilot's capacity for employment. I discussed the issue of atrial fibrillation very briefly and generally I was qualified to provide an expert opinion..........At no point in that brief conversation was I provided with any specifics about the matter in respect of which an opinion might be required, in particular, there was no mention of Mr Sterndale by name. It was a very short and general discussion".

Example 3 - Statement made by ICWA's CEO Vic Evans - during a meeting on the 23 of January 2012

“.... he (John Langton)was reprimanded and the issue was taken up (with him) and why he would even expose himself to any risk involved in instructing his brother about it and he is not to do it again and in fact if my memory serves me correctly, the case was taken off him”.

Is it just me or do examples 2 and 3 not only contradict the testimony given by the doctor at trial, but that the statement from ICWA's CEO Vic Evans, states that his brother John Langton (ICWA's Case Manager) was the person who instructed his brother regarding the report he was being asked to write. I will let you, the reader, decide if the differences in the three statements constitute a case of perjury!

Differences in statements from ICWA's CEO Vic Evans as to the reason why ICWA took my claim to court:

Furthermore, ICWA's CEO Vic Evans, in his most recent letter dated the 31 January 2012, has now has dropped the claim that ICWA's reason for taking my claim to trial was because ICWA had an "issue" with cardiological and psychiatric evidence my side presented. He now confirms that ICWA's sole reason for taking my claim to trial was that they never had any "issue" with the evidence presented and instead "engineered" for the matter to go to court because; “liability for your claim was never disputed.  It was the quantum of damages you sought that created this regrettable outcome”.

Again this argument is nonsense because ICWA's own expert (Qantas) agreed with the calculations/quantum we had given to the Insurance Commission, years before trial begin. Interestingly however, in the letter, Vic Evans denies that its John Langton had been reprimanded, which directly contradicts what he said during the meeting.

ALL the evidence therefore proves that the sole purpose of all of ICWA's outrageous tactics, lies and untrue assertions at trial was that they did not want to pay for what they themselves now concede, was a legitimate claim. So much for justice and ICWA's published Mission and Values! 

To support the above allegations I am making available all the correspondence, emails, decisions, transcripts of meetings and phone calls as well as the actual audio recordings.
Further details in regards to these organizations can be viewed by clicking on the appropriate "links" on the menu to the left.

Updated 19 April 2017 ML