Policy

1. Rowe and Australian Shipping Commission (1981): An employee stopped off at a hotel on the way home and later walked through a construction site after dark, injuring himself.

'Abnormal' is defined in the following terms by the Concise Oxford Dictionary:

abnormal 1. Deviating from what is normal or usual; exceptional

An abnormal risk is a risk to which the employee would not usually be exposed, or the risk arising from an activity which is inherently dangerous.

1.Adams and Australian Postal Corporation (1993): the Tribunal held that, in the circumstances, eavesdropping was not serious and wilful misconduct. The Tribunal held that, at least in cases relating to physical injuries, the conduct must be such as to give rise to an immediate risk of injury. It must be a deliberate act, and not merely a thoughtless act done on the spur of the moment and it must be accompanied by an appreciation of the risk involved.

For example, development of osteoarthritis in a left knee joint which had previously suffered a split articular surface in a compensable fall would, if medical opinion established a causative link between the two, be a sequela of that original knee condition. Similarly, in that case, the right knee condition may also be accepted for compensation as a sequela of the left knee condition(s).

If the condition arose where the promotion or transfer process was flawed, the exclusionary provision generally should not be applied as it usually is difficult to establish whether the adverse reaction was a result of the failure to obtain the benefit or of the flawed process (or both).

Note, however, that this general rule could be set aside where the evidence is unequivocal on the issue of causation.

This provision reads:

6(1) Without limiting the circumstances in which an injury to an employee may be treated as having arisen out of , or in the course of, his or her employment, an injury shall, for the purposes of this Act, be treated as having so arisen if it was sustained:

...

b) while the employee:

...

(v) was travelling between his or her place of work or place of residence and a place of education for the purpose of attending that place in accordance with:

Post-traumatic stress disorder, by definition, is caused by a traumatic event. Although treated by RCG as a 'disease' for some purposes (i.e. in terms of 'contribution') the actual illness nevertheless has the character of a simple injury – i.e. the cause relates to a single traumatic event. The acceptance of liability therefore depends not only on diagnosis, but on the verified reality of the alleged trauma.

If a member is injured while attending at a place of education for the purposes specified in the Act, but the member is on LWOP, coverage can not be extended under S6(1)(v) or (vi).

Note, however, that care must be taken to identify with precise accuracy whether the member was on LWOP at the time of the injury. This is illustrated by the following circumstances:

It is RCG policy to give clients who are to receive an adverse decision, advance warning of that likely outcome. The purpose of that policy is to give that client the opportunity to submit new evidence in the light of your interpretation of the evidence (or the lack of it).

While it is generally not necessary to give advance notice if you are going to determine in the client’s favour, thought should be given to the client and the nature of their claim when deciding if advance notice is appropriate.

Neither the 1971 Act nor the 1930 Act contain a specific provision formally deeming accidents involving the influence of alcohol or a drug to be 'serious and wilful misconduct' in the terms of S4(13) of the SRCA.

However, it is expected that Delegates, faced with a pre-88 claim in which the causative element included the influence of alcohol, would nevertheless deny the claim except in extraordinary circumstances. In most cases, the grounds for such a dismissal would be 'serious and wilful misconduct'.