"The South Australian Employment Tribunal originally ruled City of Charles Sturt worker Lauren Vercoe was eligible for workers' compensation after she tripped on a metal pet fence while working from her Adelaide home. That ruling has now been successfully appealed by her employer, with the tribunal finding her employment needed to be a "significant contributing cause of the injury" and it wasn't enough that she was simply working at home on an authorised break when injured."
"While the matter still needs to be fully determined by a re-hearing, workplace lawyer Tim McDonald told Yahoo Finance it was a "live question" when it came to how far employers had to go and what were reasonably practical steps to ensure the safety of employees working from home. RELATED Vercoe injured herself when she tripped and fell over a 60-centimetre-high metal pet fence while working from home."
"She had put up the pet fence to keep her pet rabbit away from a colleague's dog she was pet-sitting at the time. She had got up to make a cup of coffee. The tribunal originally held she was eligible for workers' compensation as her workplace was her home and the injury occurred when she was taking an "authorised paid coffee break"."
A South Australian tribunal initially found a municipal employee eligible for workers' compensation after she tripped on a 60-centimetre metal pet fence while at her Adelaide home. The worker had installed the fence to keep a pet rabbit away from a colleague's dog she was pet-sitting and rose to make a cup of coffee when she fell. The tribunal treated the home as the workplace and identified the fence as a physical workplace hazard. The employer successfully appealed, with the appeal finding employment must be a significant contributing cause, and ordered a re-hearing. A legal question remains about employers' reasonable steps to ensure safety for work-from-home staff.
Read at Yahoo Finance
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