Australia

The applicant employer, Ergon Energy, appealed against the decision of the respondents to grant Mr Bathe, its employee, workers compensation for lung cancer caused by passive smoking in the workplace. The applicant appealed on various administrative law grounds, including that the Tribunal below had failed to provide sufficient reasons for its decision and that the Tribunal's decision was so unreasonable that no reasonable decision-maker could have come to it (ie. Wednesbury unreasonableness).

The Supreme Court dismissed the applicant's appeal, upholding the Tribunal's decision that Mr Bathe had suffered an injury in the relevant sense under the statute and that the injury was lung cancer caused by exposure to second-hand smoke in the workplace.