Kuwait Court of Cassation principle number 385

Summary: - A worker’s request for compensation for his injury caused by and sustained during work, or his request for the expenses of his treatment or the treatment of a member of his family, pursuant to the provisions of Law 28 of 1969 concerning work in the oil sector, and the occurrence of a disagreement between him and the employer concerning the contents of the medical certificate or the treating physician’s report regarding the period of treatment and the place designated for it. The person challenging the report or certificate, whether the worker or the employer, must submit his objection in writing to the Labour Office within a period not exceeding ninety days from the date of receipt of the certificate or report. Labour Office. Its obligation to refer the matter to the Medical Arbitration Committee constituted pursuant to Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour Decision No. 23 of 1974(*). Binding effect of this Committee’s decision. Final and not subject to challenge. Meaning of this. Matters concerning the time limit for challenging the medical certificate or report, the measures taken in this regard, and the constitution of the Medical Arbitration Committee that examines the challenge are procedures confined to the Labour Office while the dispute between the worker and the employer is presented to it for amicable settlement, and do not extend beyond it to the court if the dispute is referred where amicable settlement proves impossible. Consequence of this. If the employer or worker allows the right to object to the medical certificate or report before the Labour Office within the prescribed time limit to lapse, he has no right, after referral of the dispute from the Labour Office to the court, to object to either the medical certificate or the report. - Notification by the respondent company—Kuwait Oil Company—to the appellant—the worker—by the company physician’s letter that his son had completed his treatment abroad on the basis of the medical reports and that the meeting of the Higher Medical Committee had ratified this, and the absence from the labour complaint file referred by the competent Labour Department to the Court of First Instance of any dispute by the appellant concerning these medical reports or any written challenge submitted by him to the competent Labour Office within the ninety-day period from the date of his receipt of the notification, objecting to the duration and place of his son’s treatment. Consequence. The report, including the duration and place of treatment stated in it, is beyond dispute before the competent court between the appellant and the respondent company. The judgment’s reliance on that letter by which the respondent company notified the appellant that his son’s period of treatment abroad had ended, and its dismissal of his action seeking the expenses of his son’s treatment for the period following the date of that notification. Correct. Rule: Article 15 of Law No. 28 of 1969 concerning Work in the Oil Business Sector provides that: “Every oil business employer employing at least two hundred (200) workers must entrust one or more physicians with examining his workers and their families and treating them at the place prepared by the employer for this purpose. He must also provide them with all other means of treatment in cases in which treatment requires recourse to specialist physicians, surgical operations or otherwise, together with the provision of the necessary medicines. These services shall be provided to the workers and their families free of charge.” Article Two thereof provides that: “The provisions of this Law shall apply exclusively to oil workers. In matters for which no provision is made in this Law and the decisions implementing it, the provisions of Law No. 38 of 1964 concerning Work in the Private Sector shall also apply to them.” Article 63 of the latter Law provided that: “An injured worker shall have the right to treatment at a government hospital or private treatment facility as the employer considers appropriate. The treating physician may specify in his medical report the period of treatment, the disability resulting from the injury, and his ability to continue performing work. If a disagreement arises in this regard, the matter shall be referred to the Ministry of Public Health for arbitration, and its opinion shall be final. The employer shall bear the full expenses of treatment, including medicines and transport.” In implementation of this provision, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour issued Ministerial Decision No. 23 of 1974 concerning the Regulation of Medical Arbitration Procedures in Cases of Work Injuries and Occupational Diseases. Article One thereof specified the composition of the Medical Arbitration Committee, and Article Three thereof provided that: “The Committee shall examine all challenges submitted by workers or employers relating to work injuries, occupational diseases, the percentages of permanent disability resulting from them, or the medical certificate issued by treating physicians, whether government physicians, private physicians or factory physicians.” Article Four thereof provided that: “The challenge must be submitted in writing to the competent Labour Office within a period not exceeding ninety days from the date of receipt of the medical certificate or the report issued by the treating physician. The Labour Office must refer the challenge to the chairman of the Arbitration Committee within one week from the date of its submission. No challenge submitted after the expiry of the period referred to in Article Four shall be examined.” Article Five of the same Decision provided that: “The decisions of the Medical Arbitration Committee shall be final and not subject to challenge in any form whatsoever.” Article 96 of the aforementioned Law No. 38 of 1964 provides that: “.....2- An action brought by a worker pursuant to the provisions of this Law shall be preceded by an application submitted by him to the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour. This Ministry shall summon the two parties to the dispute and take the measures necessary to settle the dispute between them amicably. If an amicable settlement is not reached, the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour must, within two weeks from the time the worker submits the application, refer the dispute to the Court of First Instance.....”. The import of these provisions—as established in the case law of this Court—is that where a worker requests compensation for his injury caused by and sustained during work, or requests the expenses of his treatment or that of a member of his family pursuant to the provisions of the aforementioned Law No. 28 of 1969, and a disagreement arises between him and the employer concerning the contents of the medical certificate or the treating physician’s report regarding the period of treatment and the place designated for it, the person challenging that report or certificate—whether the worker or the employer—must submit his objection in writing to the Labour Office within a period not exceeding ninety days from the date of receipt of the certificate or report. The Labour Office must then refer the matter to the Medical Arbitration Committee constituted pursuant to Article One of the aforementioned Ministerial Decision No. 23 of 1974, and the decision reached by that Committee shall be final and not subject to challenge. This means that matters concerning the time limit for challenging the medical certificate or report, the measures taken in this regard, and the constitution of the Medical Arbitration Committee that examines the challenge are procedures confined to the Labour Office while the dispute between the worker and the employer is presented to it for amicable settlement, and do not extend beyond it to the court if the dispute is referred to it where amicable settlement proves impossible. It follows that if the worker or employer has allowed his right to object to the medical certificate or report before the Labour Office within the prescribed time limit to lapse, he has no right, after referral of the dispute from the Labour Office to the court, to object to either the medical certificate or the report. It was established from the case papers and the litigants’ documents in the action that the respondent company had notified the appellant, by the company physician’s letter, that the appellant’s son had completed his treatment abroad on 27/5/2009 on the basis of the medical reports, and that the meeting of the Higher Medical Committee had also ratified this on 17/10/2010. The labour complaint file referred by the competent Labour Department to the Court of First Instance contained no dispute by the appellant concerning these medical reports or any written challenge submitted by him to the competent Labour Office within the ninety-day period from the date of his receipt of notification thereof, objecting to the duration and place of his son’s treatment. Accordingly, this report, including the duration and place of treatment stated in it, is beyond dispute before the competent court between the appellant and the respondent company. Since the court whose judgment is challenged relied on that letter by which the respondent company notified the appellant that his son’s period of treatment abroad had ended, and dismissed his action seeking the expenses of his son’s treatment for the period following the date of that notification, its judgment correctly applied the law. The challenge to it in this respect on the two grounds of appeal is without basis, and the appeal must therefore be dismissed.