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Is playing cricket is like being at work  

March 2018 

 

The questions that the court had to consider were 

* Did the applicant suffer the injury in the course of employment? 

* Was the employment was a significant contributing cause of injury?  

In February 2016, after finishing a night shift at 6am, Mr Backhouse went for drinks at a workplace bar.  There wa some disagreement as to how many standard drinks had consumed during this time 

At 10 am he engaged in a game of cricket and injured his left knee while batting.   Mr Backhouse said he was playing to 'stay awake'. He had just completed seven Stumpsdays of night shift and had 24 hours off until the start of a day shift cycle. 

He said: "Ideally I need to stay awake for the whole day after changeover from night shift so that I can reset my body clock to sleeping at night and working in the day."

He agreed that he was never encouraged or induced to play cricket by his employer.  However, under the company’s code of conduct, workers must ensure they manage their rostered time off to prevent fatigue impacting their ability to work.  

The South Australian Employment Tribunal was satisfied Mr Backhouse’s activity of playing cricket had a sufficient connection with his employment, when considering the duty imposed by the code of conduct.  

The tribunal held that Mr Backhouse was exercising his duty to manage his rostered time off to prevent fatigue: he was playing cricket to stay awake during the day so he could sleep that night. 

The tribunal was satisfied that the cricket game, and the injury he sustained while playing, formed part of his employment and was compensable.  

Benjamin Backhouse v Return to Work SA [2018] SAET 40 (2 March 2018)  

 

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