When you suffer injury at work, you are entitled to claim workers’ compensation. If the injury was the employer’s fault, you can claim common law damages. Unfortunately, however, all too often we see employers use tactics to try and discourage you from claiming your entitlements. In this brief article we summarise some of the common tactics used by employers.

You work under an ABN, you can’t make a WorkCover claim…

Just because you work under your ABN doesn’t mean you can’t make a WorkCover claim. The reality is that these days many employers simply won’t give you a job unless you are prepared to work under your ABN. We see this particularly in construction and hospitality.

Despite what your employer might tell you, the fact is that unless you genuinely run your own small business, you will be classed as an employee, even if your employer has forced you into a sham arrangement whereby you get paid under your ABN (and usually don’t get paid super).

The Queensland workers’ compensation legislation recognises that you are entitled to make a compensation claim even if your employer has wrongly pushed you into working under your ABN.

If this is your situation, we will be happy to provide you advice on this issue. We will ask you questions about your work, such as the type of work you were doing when you were injured, whether your pay was based on the hours of work, whether the employer supplied you the tools you worked with and so on. We will then be able to tell you if you can make a compensation claim.

Don’t make a WorkCover claim, we’ll look after you…

An employer can’t stop you from making a compensation claim. But this doesn’t mean they won’t try. There are lots of different ways in which they might discourage you from making a claim.

Here are just a few examples.

When you initially report your injuries, WorkCover will start paying your wages and your medical bills. When WorkCover is about to close your file, they will make you a lump sum compensation offer. If you accept the offer, you can’t make a common law damages claim – even though you could get a lot more compensation. It is at this point that the employer might say to you that there is a new position and a promotion waiting for you if you are willing to show loyalty to the company and not make a common law damages claim. But on the other hand, if you make a common law damages claim, then unfortunately they won’t be able to hold your current position.

If they put you in this position, be very careful! If you decide to accept the promotion and not make a common law damages claim, what’s to stop the employer from making your new position redundant in 6 months’ time? It doesn’t cost them anything but it can cost you everything!

Another example is if the employer doesn’t want you to report your injuries. They will continue to pay your wages and your medical bills, just don’t report anything to WorkCover. This is illegal and you should never agree to this!

A further example is if a family member (such as a spouse) also works at the same company. This is something we see very often. They won’t directly discourage you from claiming, but your spouse will see that they are treating them differently at the workplace. It can be very hard to deal with this issue. In many cases, it really comes down to the severity of your injuries. If it’s significant injuries where you stand to loose a lot, it’s obviously worth pursuing a claim.

Someone from HR will go with you to the doctor…

There is only one reason for a company representative to go to the doctor with you: they want the doctor to certify you as fit for work sooner than the doctor otherwise would. The other thing the employer wants in this situation is then to be able to contact your doctor directly.

We advise you to never allow the employer to go to a doctor’s appointment with you. They have no role to play in the doctor/patient relationship!

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.