Where a compassionate appointment scheme prescribes an upper age limit but does not specify the date with reference to which the age is to be reckoned, is the eligibility to be determined with reference to the date the employer considers the application, or the date on which the process of compassionate appointment was initiated?

The date on which the process of compassionate appointment was initiated. In the absence of an express stipulation, age eligibility for compassionate appointment must be reckoned with reference to the date on which the right to seek such appointment accrued and the process stood initiated, and not the date on which the employer, at its own pace, ultimately considers the application.

Compassionate appointment — Age eligibility — Date of initiation of process — Administrative delay attributable to employer — National Coal Wage Agreement — Clause 9.3.4 — Compassionate appointment — Age eligibility — Reckoned from date process initiated, not date of consideration — Held: Where the governing scheme prescribes an upper age limit for compassionate appointment but does not specify the date with reference to which such age is to be reckoned, the eligibility is to be determined with reference to the date on which the right accrued and the process of compassionate appointment stood initiated, and not the date on which the employer ultimately considered the application; since the employer's own communication directing police verification demonstrated that the process had already commenced while the dependent was within the prescribed age limit, the subsequent rejection on the ground of being overage by the time of consideration could not be sustained. (¶15, 17, 19, 22) Compassionate appointment — Employer cannot benefit from own administrative delay — Held further: An employer cannot be permitted to defeat the claim of an otherwise eligible dependent by taking advantage of its own delay in processing the application for compassionate appointment; applications for compassionate appointment ought to be considered and decided expeditiously, and a dependent who was fully eligible on the date of death or initiation of the process cannot be rendered ineligible merely because procedural formalities, including delay attributable to the employer, consumed time. (¶21, 22, 24)

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