[2025] UKUT 037 (AAC)

In his original application to the Pensions Appeal Tribunal for permission to appeal, the Appellant advanced two principal grounds of appeal. The first was that the Tribunal had failed to have proper regard to the first footnote to Table 3, namely the need to consider the claimant’s psychological, social and occupational function in assessing functional limitation or restriction for the purposes of Article 5(6). The second was that the Tribunal had incorrectly applied Article 5(7) with respect to both the permanent nature of his mental health condition and also his functional limitation. In the light of those grounds of appeal the President of Pensions Appeal Tribunals for Scotland granted permission to appeal to the Upper Tribunal.

In the course of the Upper Tribunal proceedings, the Appellant further developed his grounds of appeal. As set out in his skeleton argument for the oral hearing, his refined grounds of appeal were four-fold. Ground 1 focussed on what was contended to be the Tribunal’s misapplication of Article 5(7) and the issue of permanence. Ground 2 alleged a failure to correctly apply the Table 3 descriptors and in particular footnotes (a) and (b). Ground 3 argued that insufficient weight had been given by the Tribunal to the Appellant’s psychological, social and occupational functioning, while Ground 4 submitted that the Tribunal had failed to provide adequate reasons for its decision. The Appellant expanded on these grounds of appeal in his carefully argued and eloquent oral submissions. The Appellant gave a very clear account of his PTSD symptoms and explained why, so far as he (and, he sought to emphasise, his treating physicians) was concerned, he suffered from a permanent mental disorder.