If there is one silver lining from dealing with COVID-19, floods and fires over the past few years, it's that workers and others are now more willing to accept that their mental health can be affected and reach out for help, National Mental Health Commission CEO, Christine Morgan, has told the Comcare National Conference.
Despite the fact that an employer was negligent in the way it managed an injured worker's return-to-work plan, a superior court has confirmed this negligence wasn't the cause of her subsequent anxiety and depressive illness.
A psychologically injured worker's employer did not take unreasonable administrative action against him by declining to return him to work after an incident, but rather was acting out of concern for the welfare of his supervisor and colleagues, a tribunal has found.
A major employer breached its duty of care to a psychologically unfit worker - who resisted returning to frontline duties - through her supervisor failing to satisfy himself that she had the psychological capacity to get "back on the truck", an appeals court has confirmed.
An employer's duty to provide suitable work for injured employees does not extend to previously injured workers whose incapacities have ceased, a tribunal full bench has confirmed in an important case.
A worker has unsuccessfully claimed his employer unreasonably withheld work from him after he recovered from a back injury and this caused his psychological condition. A tribunal found the "recertification" process that troubled the worker was "not work-related.
In the latest development in the notorious Sydney Water Corporation WHS poster case, the Fair Work Commission has found the employer's "inept" management of the worker while she was ill, and its "marked indifference" to the serious poster incident, forced the worker to resign.
A major employer's liability for the aggravation of a worker's back injury ceased when the work-related component of her condition resolved, a tribunal has ruled in referring to a High Court judgment, and rejecting the worker's claim that looking down at work contributed to her incapacity.
