Former Defense Worker Loses Compensation Case

Source: Safety Culture

by Zoe Dunbar

A worker that used to work for the public service and who has in the past been found guilty of defrauding the Defense Department has lost her worker's compensation case.

The female worker had been claiming compensation for medical expenses and domestic assistance for injuries and "psychogenic pain" that she claimed to have received at work in 2007.

The worker had worked for the Defence Materiel Organisation had previously received compensation since an incident where she hurt her neck in 2007. At the time she had picked up a case of official papers following a flight from Victoria to Canberra.

In September 2007 her claim for "adjustment reaction with mixed emotional features" was approved whilst a second for "psychogenic pain" was also approved in June 2010 because both of these conditions were found to be associated with the original injury.

But during a hearing at the Administrative Appeals Tribunal, Comcare's decision to cut off the compensation to the worker was upheld. The tribunal found that the injury had "largely healed" and if there was in pain from a psychological condition it could not be linked to the time that she worked at Defense, which had been finished for more than five years.

The decision by the tribunal was based on the evidence of 14 doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, pain specialists and physiotherapists.