In this article we briefly summarise some of the important things you need to know if you suffer injury as a Queensland FIFO worker. We have another page which deals with how you can calculate your compensation entitlements as a FIFO worker.

What happens to your job after a workplace injury?

If you suffer injury at work, the first step is that you will go on Workcover. Basically, this means you apply for compensation.  WorkCover will then pay your weekly wages and your medical bills. They won’t ask who was at fault. As long as your injury happened at work, you will start receiving payments.

Will your employer keep your job open for you? Protection against dismissal

First of all, let’s look at this from a practical perspective: in our experience many FIFO workers have very highly sought after specialised knowledge and experience. There is often competition for skilled workers. This means that often there is no point in considering if there is any legal obligation for the employer to keep your job open, because the practical reality is that they will be keen for you to remain employed.

Having said this, the employer does have some important legal obligations. Most importantly, the legislation states that in the first 12 months after your injury, your employer can’t dismiss you solely or mainly because you are unfit for work because of your injury. Please keep in mind that this protection applies if you have a work-related injury. In other words, if your injury happened in a car accident that had nothing to do with work, the 12 months protection does not apply.

After 12 months, in our experience employers probably won’t be keen to terminate your employment if you keep getting WorkCover benefits. The reason is obvious: if WorkCover Queensland is paying your wages and if it doesn’t cost the employer anything to “keep you on the books”, then there is no real urgency to upset the status quo.

Strictly speaking, if you are still unfit for work, after 12 months the employer can terminate your employment. How would they do it? They would require you to attend an examination by a doctor, who would then report to the company that you are unfit for your duties. If the employer is trying to go down this path, please contact us and we can protect your interests.

The injuries stop you from returning to FIFO work – now what?

We would very carefully assess if your injuries were caused by the negligence of the employer and/or another company (further on this below). The bottom line is this: if we can prove that you got hurt due to someone else’s fault, we can claim common law damages on your behalf, which is likely to be very significant.

Before going any further, let’s clarify the meaning of common law damages: it’s money that you receive for your pain and suffering, past and future income loss, past and future medical expenses, the value of any care you required, and potentially a whole range of other things that we discuss below.

Important: while you receive common law damages in one lump sum, do not confuse this with a “lump sum compensation offer” which WorkCover Queensland makes when they close your claim file. When WorkCover closes your file, they offer you a relatively small payout which they call “lump sum compensation offer”. This is nothing compared to your common law damages entitlement.

However: if you accept WorkCover’s offer, you can’t make a common law damages claim which would result in a huge loss. (Read more on this here.)

What to do when WorkCover makes a lump sum offer?

When WorkCover makes a lump sum offer, it comes in two parts. It contains a “Notice of assessment” which is basically the assessment of your injuries expressed in percentage terms. For example, it might say that your lower back injury has resulted in a 5% degree of whole person impairment.

Secondly, you receive the offer itself.

People often think that WorkCover’s lump sum compensation offer is negotiable. This is not the case. When you receive the offer as part of the Notice of assessment, the dollar value of the offer is calculated by reference to your degree of whole person impairment. So, if WorkCover offers you $12,000.00, you can’t go back and say that you only accept $25,000.00.

WorkCover says I have 20 days to decide about the offer – now what?

One common misconception is that you only have 20 business days to accept or deny an offer by WorkCover.

In fact, the 20-business day period is to decide if you want to appeal the percentage impairment that WorkCover has given you. In other words, if for example they say your lower back injury resulted in a 5% impairment, you have 20 days to decide if you want to appeal the 5% assessment.

The reality is that in the majority of cases an appeal would be unlikely to result in a better outcome, and even if it does, the increase will only be a few percentage points. This would then mean that you receive a new lump sum compensation offer which is only a few thousand dollars more than the original offer.

Is there a better alternative?

In many cases, the better option is to make a claim for common law damages. The damages amount you can receive in a common law damages claim is often at least one order of magnitude higher than WorkCover’s initial offer. This is because in a common law damages claim you can recover compensation for things like income loss to be incurred in the future, lost superannuation contributions on top of income loss, compensation for pain and suffering, medical expenses (including medical expenses in the future) just to name a few. These are not paid for by WorkCover when they make you their initial lump sum compensation offer.

In other words, if you receive a lump sum compensation offer of say $15,000.00, often you are far better off making a common law damages claim, where the compensation amount can easily be six figures, rather than trying to increase WorkCover’s initial lump sum offer by a few thousand dollars as part of an appeal.

What steps do I need to take once I receive the lump sum compensation offer?

Firstly, do not accept WorkCover’s lump sum compensation offer until you seek legal advice. Remember, if you accept the offer, you will have no further right to seek common law damages for your work incident.

Secondly, contact us immediately when you receive the Notice of assessment and do not contact WorkCover. Be aware that the WorkCover claims officer may contact you to check if you received the Notice of assessment. If you do receive this call, you can confirm that you received the assessment and the offer but do not say anything else.

We will then advise you if you have good chances to win a common law damages claim. If you do, almost always our recommendation will be to proceed with that claim, rather than accepting WorkCover’s lump sum offer.

Once we commence the common law damages claim, you do not need to communicate anything to WorkCover. There will be no need to confirm to them that you have declined the lump sum offer, we will deal with all of that on your behalf.

25% Cap on legal costs

In all of our personal injury compensation matters, we act on a  No Win – No Fee basis. What that means is, there’s no upfront cost to you.

In Queensland, most compensation firms will charge you 50% of your compensation amount – the maximum allowed at law. This is very expensive. Our fee is different. We will cap our fee at 25% . Remember also, these are the maximum fees we will charge. If our fee in your claim is less, then we charge the lesser amount.

Before you engage us, we will provide you a written Disclosure Notice and a Client Service Agreement. These documents set out in detail the service we provide, as well as our fees and outlays. Before you sign anything, you can take these documents home with you, and study them with your family. You can take as long as you need, there is never any pressure from us. If anything in these documents doesn’t make sense to you, we can discuss it with you and you are free to ask another lawyer to give you advice.  And remember, no win – no fee agreements come with a 5 day cooling off period for extra peace of mind.