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A very brief outline of the factual background to the appeal
A very brief outline of the factual background to the appeal
The Appellant had two periods of service in the armed forces. He first joined the regular army for officer training in 1988, but left in 1997 to pursue a civilian career. He then joined the reserve forces in 2002 and rejoined the regular army again in 2004.
The Appellant’s army service naturally took him abroad on multiple occasions, sometimes for prolonged periods, during both the pre-April 2005 and post-April 2005 periods. During nearly all these deployments he experienced various degrees of exposure to the sun and suffered sunburn. Before April 2005 he served in Canada (1988 and 1991), Bosnia (1994), the USA (1996) and Afghanistan (2004/05). After April 2005 he was posted to Kenya (2006), Oman (2007/08) and Afghanistan again (2009, 2010 and 2017/18).
Colonel C’s case before the FTT was that his melanoma had been predominantly caused by exposure to sunlight during his AFCS service, i.e. his service after 6 April 2005. Sadly, he died of the resulting cancer on 8 March 2021.
- Heading
- The decision of the Upper Tribunal is to dismiss the Appellant’s appeal. The decision of the First-tier Tribunal issued on 4 January 2021, following the hearing on 21 December 2020 under file number A
- Introduction
- A very brief outline of the factual background to the appeal
- The Appellant’s AFCS claim
- The Secretary of State’s decision on the Appellant’s AFCS claim
- The Appellant’s appeal to the First-tier Tribunal
- The decision of the First-tier Tribunal
- The Upper Tribunal appeal
- The AFCS legislative framework
- The role of appellate review in appeals from a specialist first instance jurisdiction
- Ground 1
- The First-tier Tribunal’s approach to making findings on the basis of its own knowledge
- The Appellant’s other main written submissions in the context of Ground 1
- The Appellant’s other main oral submissions in the context of Ground 1
- Ground 3
- The non-fault based nature of the AFCS
- The causation test and JM v Secretary of State for Defence
- Key points from the three-judge panel’s decision in JM v Secretary of State for Defence
- The First-tier Tribunal’s approach to the decision in JM v SSD
- The Appellant’s challenge to the FTT’s approach to the decision in JM v SSD
- Pulling the threads together
- Conclusions