My Blog Site - When a frolic is not compensatable!

My Blog Site

whsblog.com OHS and Safety

My Blog Site whsblog.com

Anything of interest to the OHS Committee in NSW,

People at work, Safety, Travel and anything quirky or funny.

When a frolic is not compensatable!

June 2014

When employees attend a work function, there has often been an expectation that their employer is responsible should an accident occur. In the case of Australian Leisure and Hospitality Group Pty Ltd v Simon Blackwood (2014) QIRC 105, the opposite was found.

Mrs Campbell (the deceased) attended a Christmas party at a park near the Noosa River, organised by her employer, Dan Murphy’s Noosaville. The function was organised through their social club, but the management group for Dan Murphy’s had sanctioned the function.

During the function, Mrs Campbell decided to take a swim in the Noosa River with another worker and ran towards the river, diving in head first. In doing so, Mrs Campbell sustained a fatal injury.

Even though there was “inducement or encouragement” for Mrs Campbell to attend the function on 31 March 2013, it was held by the Queensland Industrial Relations Commission (QIRC) that the activity organised by Dan Murphy’s Noosaville was not “the diving into the Noosa River”.

For the claim to be successful, the injury had to be ‘arising out of, or in the course of, employment if the employment is a significant contributing factor to causing the injury’ under section 32 of the Act. The QIRC cited Comcare v PVYW [2013] HCA 41, and said for the injury to be ‘suffered in the course of employment’ it could be:

· "suffered by an employee whilst engaged in an activity in which the employer has induced or encouraged the employee to engage or;"

· "where an injury was suffered at and by reference to a place where the employer had induced or encouraged the employee to be”

The Regulator had argued that the activity in question was the Christmas party, and the ALH Group conceded that Mrs Campbell had been encouraged to attend the event. However, the QIRC decided that the activity in question was diving into the Noosa River. “Crucially, an inducement or encouragement to be at a particular place does not provide the necessary connection to employment merely because an employee is injured while engaged in an activity at that place.”

The QIRC referred to WorkCover Queensland v BHP (Qld) Worker’s Compensation Unit (2002) 170 QGIG 142, where Hall P said “[a]n employee who sustains an injury whilst on a frolic of his own in his employer's time has no entitlement to compensation”, and concluded that the injury was a result of Mrs Campbell making.

See More:-

http://www.mullinslaw.com.au/_publications/20140808145802342.pdf

http://www.employsure.com.au/latest-news/bets-comes-employee-safety/

OHS and safety blog

Newsletter

I Speak My Mind

◦	Do you drop your dacks at work
◦	Whats for breakfast
◦	Go Home. Stop those long overtime hours
◦	Benifits of Booze
◦	Stop Laughing and start living
◦	Don’t become a victim of the ‘Streisand Effect’
◦	Tell the boss to turn-it-down
◦	Coffe, Cancer and Chaos
◦	Weddings should be banned
◦	The Laws of the Universe - or Murphy was an Optomist
◦	Is it time to tell the boss to get ..........

The Law - Act, Regulations, Codes of Practice

Case studies - WHS through the cases - Australia

◦	Jail plus $1m fine
◦	Category 1 offence
◦	$1.3m penalty for death of a worker
◦	$10m Undertaking
◦	Farting at work
◦	Playing cricket is work
◦	Chain of command
◦	Accident on way home was found to a connection to work
◦	Worker impaled by reinforcing bar
◦	Unfair Dismissal at end of fixed term contract
◦	Sexual assault in hospital
◦	First_cat_1_Offence_in_NSW
◦	Record NSW WHS Penalty
◦	Who is Engaged as a Worker?
◦	Record Victorian penalty
◦	When are you at work?
◦	Fall at work. $688,000 compensation
◦	Record penalty against businessman for underpayment
◦	Rise in manslaughter cases
◦	Ladder use - training not required
◦	Make sure that your defence team knows the right numbers
◦	Telling a ‘porky’ won’t bring home the bacon
◦	Employment agency not vicariously liable
◦	Tourist dies whilst on tour in Northern Territory
◦	The cost of failing
◦	Suspended gaol term
◦	Enforceable undertaking
◦	Lifting of boxes is part of normal office work
◦	Should you be terminated for swearing at the boss, or kissing a colleague
◦	Who is NOT an officer of a PCBU.
◦	Powers of WorkCover NSW to force a company to produce documents
◦	Ensuring safety
◦	Can unreasonable behaviour be insured
◦	Is it forseeable?
◦	Employee responsible for own safety.
◦	HSR loses unfair dismissal case
◦	Transport company, and the director, fined for false records
◦	Hume doors enforceable undertaking
◦	Theft_of_data
◦	What_is_reasonable
◦	When a frolic is not compensatable!
◦	117 Workers found guilty
◦	Fired for doing a chicken dance
◦	Sexual harassment worker wins after appeal
◦	Enforceable Undertaking in glass factory
◦	Injured worker caught playing competative basketball
◦	Claim 19 years after death
◦	Throwing Stones – Not the Right Answer
◦	Employer beats OHS charge
◦	Beware of hot water before you land in it.
◦	Is 'lippy' a cure for bullying?
◦	Does a principal contractor have a responsibility to train a sub-contractor
◦	What constitutes 'reasonable'
◦	Be Polite
◦	Big payout for sexual harassment
◦	Sex not work - High Court decides
◦	Court defends HSR's actions
◦	What is acceptable alternative work
◦	Worker crushed by machine safe system failed
◦	Is it work? The courts don't always agree
◦	How not to break an egg
◦	Is drinking coffee work?
◦	Lifting copy paper nets almost $240k
◦	Baida Chickens
◦	Machinery supplier fined over amputation
◦	Director is not 'too remote' from the company
◦	The Kirk Case
◦	Bunnings and the Potting Mix
◦	Hazardous Hairdresser and OHS
◦	Robbery at Franklins
◦	Fosters $1.25m penalty
◦	Self employed - Safety for the disobedient

Stories from around the world

◦	UK Company pays 1 million pounds
◦	Hotel workers to wear panic buttons
◦	Royal Opera House made to face the music
◦	When can work be a smoko?
◦	penalty reduced on financial grounds
◦	Star Wars Film Producers Prosecuted
◦	Electromagnetic fields harmful to your health
◦	Warning to Welders
◦	A big payout for two four two letter words
◦	Green Tea can improve brain function
◦	Don't bully the boss
◦	When is a mother not a mother
◦	Obesity and work - the connection
◦	New Zealand to adopt Australian WHS law
◦	How I Broke My Collar Bone
◦	The church thatdoes not believe in prayer, and the whore house that does
◦	OHS Consultant fined for being unqualified
◦	Prison for OHS fraud
◦	What is sex discrimination worth?
◦	Don't get Cross about a Cross
◦	Fired for being too sexy
◦	Is lactation a condition of pregnancy
◦	Email From Home results in sacking
◦	Compo case while working from home
◦	Top ten US causes of workplace injury
◦	Drug testing and the story of a false 'you know what'
◦	Does your company have a love contract?
◦	Unknown worker retires
◦	The crazy world of Britain's OHS Regulations
◦	Buffered for Morale, or getting it all off

Stories from around Australia

◦	Who is looking after those that look after us.
◦	Drug vapours threaten life of police officer
◦	Urine testing banned
◦	Discriminatory Conduct
◦	Coles fined $170 000
◦	Unfair Dismissals
◦	Sex on a business trip
◦	Director acquitted and charged after appeal
◦	Telstra employee injured while working from home
◦	Jail sentence for OHS offence
◦	20 20 Hindsight
◦	OHS in a Brothel

Resources

◦	Pin Decision Tree
◦	Site Inspection Form

Communication

◦	Impromptu Speaking
◦	Retorts and Witticisms
◦	Washington Post Word competition
◦	Quotes1
◦	Quotes2
◦	Quote3

Legislation- codes of practice - fact sheets

◦	Legislation and Codes of Practice
◦	Fact Sheets and Statistics
◦	WHS Decision Tree

Accident Investigation and Reporting and Management Theories

◦	The concept of empowerment
◦	The Heinrich Law
◦	The five why technique
◦	Fishbone or 'Ishikawa technique'
◦	William_Edwards_Deming
◦	P_D_C_A
◦	Risk_Matrix

Just for fun

◦	SDS for hazardous material:- Man and Woman
◦	Murphy was an optomist
◦	OHS Humour
◦	Jokes you could tell in church
◦	When U Black, You Black
◦	Brain Teasers
◦	BrainTeaser 1
◦	BrainTeaser 2
◦	BrainTeaser 3
◦	BrainTeaser 4
◦	BrainTeaser 5
◦	BrainTeaser 6

Signs and Photographs

◦	Illusions
◦	Transport
◦	Stupid Signs
◦	Working at Height
◦	Not a good idea
◦	Electrical
◦	Wrong tool
◦	Overloaded
◦	Building sites and builders

Privacy

Site Map