An employer's failure to address the obvious risks posed by its "incredibly cluttered" warehouse set off a "catastrophic" sequence of events, and has led to a $5.6 million damages award to an injured worker.
A worker's emotional distress from his newly created role inflaming rather than easing tensions between departments, and becoming increasingly complex, was a significant contributing factor to his high blood pressure and aorta tear, a tribunal has found.
* Daily safety checks urged ahead of national truck-health survey; * GHS pictogram poster updated for system transition; and * Workers' comp premiums increased in WA.
An employer has unsuccessfully claimed a worker's robbery-related psych injury has resolved and surveillance footage of him participating in creative endeavours shows he is malingering. Such footage "cannot capture the [worker's] psychological state", a tribunal stressed.
A full Federal Court has upheld two decisions denying compensation to a worker who was injured at the end of an eight-hour dinner-and-drinks session with a colleague on a work trip, but suggested it was a "borderline" case that could have gone the worker's way at first instance.
An employer has been found liable for a worker's psych injury because it "blindsided" him with a redundancy meeting shortly after he returned to work from long-term sick leave, during which he was induced to believe his job was secure.
* New Comcare team to target major infrastructure projects; * COVID-related workers' comp clause extended in NSW; and * Mobile phone crackdown coming to Vic.
An employer has unsuccessfully challenged a $2.5 million injury damages bill relating to work road maintenance failures. An appeals court rejected its claim that the injured worker was contributorily negligent in failing to satisfy the "high" duty of care owed by drivers.
Injured workers are frequently offered "non-evidence-based" treatments in the weeks following the injury event, significantly increasing the risk of their conditions becoming chronic and prolonging their compensation claims, according to an award-winning exercise physiologist.
The "softly, softly" approach to managing injured and very unwell workers helps them achieve their health and social goals and prepares them to tackle vocational issues, and is particularly effective for those with chronic conditions and costly long-tail claims, a specialist says.
