Workers’ Compensation Insurer is Your Opponent
Work injury claims legislation in Queensland is the most extensive and complex of the three main pre-court personal injury claim procedures. It also has the unusual feature that WorkCover Queensland (or your employer’s self-insurer) is both your legal opponent and the decision maker for claim disputes. The first appeal option for most adverse WorkCover decisions is to the Workers’ Compensation Regulator, but the Regulator is still not as independent as a Court.
Separate Claim for Each Injury
Work injury claims are injury based, rather than accident or event based. So if you suffered three injuries in an accident and your medical certificates only list two of them, the unlisted one will not be covered. Workers often discover this when benefits are cut for the ‘accepted’ injuries and another work related injury they assumed was accepted was not. This can occur even when the injury is still causing problems that require treatment or time off work.
Bullying Victims Need Urgent Legal Advice
If you have been bullied at work, you should seek legal advice before you do anything other than deal with a medical emergency. Special rules apply to those types of claims and many employers know them well.
Choose Your Own Medical Care Providers
Problems can also arise where an employer interferes in their employee’s medical care, for example, by attempting to take the employee to the employer’s preferred doctor rather than simply calling an ambulance. Delayed reporting of a detailed list of work related injuries and symptoms to your own doctor or an independent doctor at a hospital etc can cause major problems with your claim.
Operate Within Workers’ Comp Medical Certificates
It is essential for workers to abide by their workers’ compensation medical certificates. In the event you disagree with the certificate, you need to obtain another one from your doctor. It is critical that you not do any work that WorkCover is not aware of. Severe penalties apply if you are certified unfit for work or are collecting time off work benefits from WorkCover, and then engage in work, even if it is unpaid. Make sure WorkCover is aware of any work your propose to do so they can adjust your benefits accordingly. If not, you risk having all workers’ compensation entitlements revoked, even if you would otherwise have had a common law damages claim worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Additional Compensation From Non-Employer Defendants
In Queensland, the compensation and recoverable legal costs for a work injury are the least generous of any type of personal injury claim. If a non-employer defendant who is at fault can be identified, a claim under the Personal Injuries Proceedings Act 2002 (Qld) (PIPA) may also be possible. In that case, the PIPA claim may in fact entitle you to the most generous form of compensation – pure common law damages without legislative reductions.
Seek Legal Advice Early
Even if you are not sure if you will make a common law damages work injury claim down the track when your no-fault statutory benefits claim is closed, you should seek legal advice. This is because what happens in your statutory claim can have a huge impact on the success of a common law claim later. We do not charge clients for advice about statutory claims while they are still unsure whether they will pursue common law damages, even if they later decide not to.