Focus on ACC

After a recent appeal decision, Dunedin ACC campaigner Denise Powell is urging ACC to "do the right thing" by reinstating compensation payments to about 170 people, including sexual abuse victims.

However, ACC spokesman Laurie Edwards says it will not be reinstating the payments, ended last year, until there is further clarification of the law involving claimants who became incapacitated in later employment by an earlier injury they received when they were non-earners.

ACC is seeking leave to appeal to the High Court over the key points of law involved in the recent Dominique Vandy versus ACC appeal decision, in which Judge Martin Beattie, sitting at the Hamilton District Court, found the previously-injured claimant had weekly compensation coverage.

Judge Beattie upheld the appeal by Ms Vandy, who received shoulder and hip injuries when she fell from a horse at age 12, while a non-earner, in 2003.