The New South Wales Personal Injury Commission has determined that a worker who contracted COVID-19 during the course of his employment has a compensable injury within the meaning of the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW).
The worker, a Director of a company dealing in dental technology whose primary business was based in Australia, had travelled to the United States in July 2020 in order to oversee the set-up of an American facility when he contracted COVID-19. The worker contracted the virus having attended several networking functions with colleagues and, after being transferred to hospital in late-July, he ultimately passed away from the virus in the United States in November 2020.
Following his death, the estate of the deceased worker brought a compensation claim for $834,000.00 in death benefits and $11,000,000.00 in medical expenses under the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (the Act). The NSW workers compensation insurer iCare disputed this claim and argued in the NSW Personal Injury Commission that it should not be liable for the claim. In support of this, iCare, on behalf of the respondent employer, claimed that the worker had not suffered an 'injury' pursuant to s 4 of the Act which is defined as follows:
'injury':
(a) means personal injury arising out of or in the course of employment,
(b) includes a "disease injury", which means:
(i) a disease that is contracted by a worker in the course of employment but only if the employment was the main contributing factor...
Read Full Story: https://www.mondaq.com/australia/employee-benefits-compensation/1111142/nsw-personal-injury-commission-finds-workers-compensation-potentially-exceeding-11-million-payable-for-covid-19-death
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