A public servant who was injured while having sex on a work trip has been unsuccessful in her bid for compensation in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
The woman, whose name is suppressed, was in a country town for work purposes in 2007 when she and a man engaged in sexual activity in her motel room and pulled a glass light fitting from the wall.
It fell on the woman, injuring her nose and one of her teeth.
After the Australian Government's workplace safety and compensation authority, Comcare, refused the woman's claim, she sought a review of the decision in the AAT.
Senior Member Professor Robin Creyke affirmed Comcare's ruling but prohibited the publication of her reasons due to ''the confidential nature'' of the information they contained.
Professor Creyke said her decision was suppressed because ''the tribunal has received concrete evidence that the applicant may act on suicidal tendencies if the reasons were made public''.
During a hearing last month, counsel for Comcare Andrew Berger said the sexual activity that led to the injury was ''a frolic of the applicant's own'' and that she should not be awarded worker's compensation.
He said taxpayers should not have to foot the bill for injuries over which an employer had no control.
''If it is a quintessentially private activity, it is not fair that taxpayers pay for the consequences of that activity,'' he said.
Asked by Professor Creyke how he distinguished between going out to dinner and being injured, and being injured during sex in a motel room, Mr Berger said the distinction lay in what activities were explicitly authorised or reasonably incidental to a person's work.
''Just like sleeping, showering and using the toilet, these are things that are incidental to work. Having sex is a different kettle of fish.''
http://www.canberratimes.com.au/news/lo ... 25837.aspx
Fucking public servants
Fucking public servants
“If you trust in yourself, and believe in your dreams, and follow your star. . . you'll still get beaten by people who spent their time working hard and learning things and weren't so lazy.”