The Federal Court has rejected a worker's submission that the "generality" of her violence-related psychological injury claim allows her to agitate for entitlements for other ailments without making a new claim.
More than one in three of the hundreds of COVID-19-related workers' compensation claims lodged in Australia involve mental health issues, new data from Safe Work Australia shows. Meanwhile, Western Australia has introduced a Bill extending its tough penalties for pandemic-related violence against frontline workers.
A worker was "on the job" when he was violently assaulted while chasing an absconding customer, a tribunal has found in rejecting his employer's liability challenge.
A psychologically injured worker claiming he was a "punching bag" for a major bank's angry customers never told his manager about this issue and did not have "particularly heavy" exposure to difficult customers, a tribunal has found in concluding the bank isn't liable for his condition.
A worker has failed to convince a commission his acts of road rage and dangerous driving were "proportionate" to the unsafe situation he was forced to react to and didn't warrant his dismissal.
Workers are obligated to raise workplace health and safety issues but also to conduct themselves reasonably while doing so, a commission has stressed in the case of a worker claiming he was victimised and sacked for making safety complaints.
Australia's first WHS Code of Practice for managing psychological risks, released for comment in NSW, advises duty holders to apply the hierarchy of controls and eliminate the risks by redesigning work processes.
Working from home can conceal, from employers, signs that workers are at risk of domestic and family violence. Managers must take steps to address this work-related issue, a senior employment lawyer says.
A worker who developed PTSD and other incapacitating psychological injuries from being attacked by a co-worker, and forced to encounter him at work for the next four years, has been granted permission to pursue damages from his employer.
