Mangion v London Borough of Lewisham

For priority need under Housing Act 1996, section 189(1)(c), vulnerability requires comparison with a hypothetically ordinary homeless person. The applicant must have a lesser ability to fend for herself and be likely to suffer greater harm from homelessness. The reviewing officer must determine that statutory question, while giving close regard to medical evidence; medical experts do not decide it. A review decision must be read as a whole rather than subjected to pedantic exegesis. An appellate court will not interfere where the conclusion was reasonably open to the officer and was not perverse.

Mrs Sandra Mangion, who was homeless and in her late fifties, applied to the London Borough of Lewisham for accommodation. She relied on alcohol dependency, back problems and associated mental-health difficulties. The reviewing officer decided that she was not vulnerable and therefore was not in priority need under Housing Act 1996, section 189(1)(c). HHJ Knight QC dismissed her appeal in the county court. On a second appeal, the Court of Appeal considered whether the officer had misunderstood the medical report, failed to consider relevant matters, failed to take an overall view, or reached a perverse conclusion. The central issue was whether the review decision contained an error of law.

1. The appeal was dismissed. The reviewing officer’s decision and HHJ Knight QC’s dismissal of the appeal were upheld.
2. Under section 189(1)(c) of the Housing Act 1996, the relevant question was whether Mrs Mangion’s condition made her vulnerable in the statutory sense. The reviewing officer correctly applied the test stated in Camden LBC ex p Pereira [1998] 31 HLR 317: whether she had a lesser ability than a hypothetically ordinary homeless person to fend for herself and would suffer greater harm from homelessness.
3. The officer was entitled to conclude that Dr Alaparti’s report did not establish severe mental disability. The report’s reference to severe disability described the effect of the claimant’s mental-health problems on her life, whereas the diagnoses recorded were moderate depression and moderate anxiety. The officer was entitled to assess the report in that context.
4. The reviewing officer had considered the medical report, the GP evidence, the claimant’s back pain, alcohol dependency, mental-health symptoms, functional difficulties, medication and other circumstances. The statutory issue was for the authority, not medical experts, to determine, although close regard had to be paid to medical evidence, as explained in Osmani v Camden LBC [2005] HLR 325.
5. The decision letter had to be read as a whole and was not to be subjected to pedantic exegesis. Its conclusion that the claimant could manage her affairs and cope with homelessness without harmful effect was reasonably open to the reviewing officer. It was not perverse, and involved no error of law.

• Court of Appeal (Civil Division): On 11 December 2008, the further appeal was dismissed. Permission for the second appeal had been granted by Rimer LJ on a renewed application because there was a compelling reason to review the decision. [2008] EWCA Civ 1642
• Central London County Court: HHJ Knight QC dismissed the appeal from the reviewing officer’s decision.