Man who broke leg whereas strolling canine can declare employees comp – Native – Insurance coverage Information
A worker who slipped on a wet log while walking his dog around a lake in Tasmania and broke his left femur has won a dispute over workers’ compensation.
Moray & Agnew lawyers say the case highlights that injuries sustained while non-work, while employees are either on-call or on-site to work, can result in compensation – even if the required link between the work and the Employment “can be thin”.
The injured man, who was employed as a relief area coordinator at Hydro Electric Corporation, was forced to live in the employer’s accommodation in Tullah, about 55 kilometers from Cradle Mountain.
At the time of the injury, he was on call and had to be available within 15 minutes of being contacted to carry out work. He was paid $ 68.15 for every day he was on call regardless of whether or not he was called.
Hydro Tasmania has not restricted the activities of the on-call workers. They could spend time with family, exercise, and so on as long as they could answer a call or call back quickly and go to work soon after.
On a Friday morning in May 2018, the man was walking along Tullah Lake with his partner and his dog, noticed that he was out of range of cell phone reception and decided to turn around as he was on call and needed to be reached. On the way back he slipped and broke his thighbone.
The man’s claim to employee compensation was disputed on the grounds that the injury did not arise from or during his employment. However, the Tasmanian Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Tribunal confirmed his claim.
Although meager, there was a link between the worker walking his dog and employment, the tribunal found, with the daily payment indicating that Hydro Tasmania was prompting or encouraging workers to be on site.
It has been determined that walking the dog while available for duty and intentionally remaining within reach for possible use is within the scope of the range of activity that the employer has encouraged the employee to perform. As such, it was found that the injury occurred in the course of employment.
The tribunal referred to previous cases where an employee who was unemployed but was injured during a non-work period was compensated after the employer specifically asked the employee to spend his time off in a designated location.
In another case, a fly-in, fly-out worker was doing shift work for two weeks at a remote location. In between shifts, he was attacked by a colleague outside a tavern near his accommodation provided by his employer.
The court ruled that the injury also occurred in the course of employment.
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