Our client was engaged in work activities in a warehouse which required strenuous and repetitive lifting of fruit and vegetable packages, which at times weighed up to 30 kilograms each. Furthermore, our client was required to lift these packages from an above shoulder height with no assistance or adequate instructions in proper lifting procedures.
Over the course of time doing these activities, our client developed and aggravated an injury to his neck. He was put off work due to his injury.
In this instance we managed to recover Work Injury Damages, which are claimable in circumstances where it can be proven that an injury resulted from an employers’ negligence. However, in order to do so, our client’s injury was required to reach a threshold impairment rating of 15% Whole Person Impairment. According to the NSW Workers Compensation laws, this means that an injury must contribute to impairing your ‘whole person’ by at least 15%. We aided our client in navigating the guidelines and organising for him to be reviewed by an accredited examiner, who deemed that his injury met this threshold.
Gerard Malouf and Partners promptly recognised the danger of the situation for the warehouse worker and the failure of the workplace to provide the necessary workplace equipment and assistance that could have avoided our client’s severe injury to his neck.
Basic workplace safety policies such as providing proper training for safe lifting procedures and not stacking heavy items so high, were simple measures that could have prevented our client’s injury. Alternatively in this case, the employer could have provided the warehouse worker with additional equipment to allow him to safely lift higher levels. These procedures can be the difference between a worker that sustains life-changing injuries and one that can safely complete their job on the everyday basis.
At Gerard Malouf and Partners we are primarily concerned with assisting those injured by facilitating the best possible financial outcome in compensation. Gerard Malouf and Partners are personal injury specialists with the expertise in finalising successful Workers Compensation claims. Our role is to ensure the recovery of medical and related expenses, weekly payments and a lump sum claim.
Depending on the impairment threshold, there may also be potentially a further claim for Common Law negligence (termed ‘work injury damages’) against the employer, which can see injured workers recover significant amounts of compensation.
Gerard Malouf and Partners recovered for our warehouse worker $250,000 in damages, in addition to close to $100,000 in lump sum benefits. This does not include benefits the worker received for weekly compensation and payments of his medical expenses. This was done through our expertise in gaining appropriate evidence and submitting pleadings suitably appropriate for this claim.
