Liaison With The Legal Representative

The legal representative should be contacted as soon as possible to alert him or her to common law and third party obligations under the 1971 Act (letter at Appendix 17 refers and should be modified to suit 1971 Act cases).

At this time, it is appropriate to also provide current details relating to the respective amounts of the employee's compensation costs.  They may quickly be compiled using the 'VCDS.CM' (View Claim Determination Summary) function.

However, it must be remembered that costs relating to:

• weekly payments for a dependant child (section 99 (10) refers); or

• medical reports (which are not paid to, or for the benefit of, the employee, rather assist Comcare to make claim decisions);

do not form part of costs to be recovered and should not be taken into account when providing details of claim payments.

The letter at Appendix 18 should be used every time updated costs are provided to the legal representative.  A copy of each letter should also be retained on the claim file as an historical record.