A groundsman who tripped over a bag of rubbish after a wasp startled him says he wants workers to understand their rights after his successful claim for damages was upheld by an appeal court.<\/p>\n
Aaron Carey-Schofield was emptying wheelie bins at an accommodation village in Dysart, central Queensland, in 2019, when he fell backwards after an insect flew towards him, stinging him on the arm.<\/p>\n
His left elbow shattered in the fall, resulting in three complicated surgeries.<\/p>\n
Last year, the Supreme Court in Rockhampton awarded $873,000 in damages after a judge found Mr Carey-Schofield, who was 41 when injured, was not properly trained by his workplace in safe work systems.<\/p>\n
A significant portion of the compensation was to cover past and future economic loss.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aaron Carey-Schofield required three surgeries on his fractured elbow. (Supplied: Shine Lawyers)<\/p>\n
At the time, labour hire company Hays employed Mr Carey-Schofield on a casual basis to work at the site, which was run by global accommodation company Civeo.<\/p>\n
Both companies attempted to have the ruling overturned, but the Queensland Court of Appeal recently dismissed the application.<\/p>\n
Hays and Civeo were contacted for comment.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aaron Carey-Schofield says he still suffers pain and struggles to carry out daily tasks. (Supplied: Shine Lawyers)<\/p>\n
Employer has ‘high duty of care’<\/p>\n
In an interview with the ABC after the Court of Appeal’s ruling, Mr Carey-Schofield said he was trained to line up rubbish bags on the ground until all bins were emptied and then load them into the back of a vehicle with a buddy.<\/p>\n
Civeo staff said its system of work was to place each rubbish bag straight into the ute to avoid trip hazards, according to Supreme Court and Court of Appeal documents.<\/p>\n
But Mr Carey-Schofield said that was not how he was trained.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Aaron Carey-Schofield was trained to line up all rubbish bags on the ground before loading them into a vehicle. (Supplied: Shine Lawyers)<\/p>\n
Mr Carey-Schofield’s lawyer, Paul Zapata, described it as a “unique” case.<\/p>\n
“If you go to a pub and ask someone, ‘Who do you reckon is at fault?’, you would probably think it was the plaintiff at first glance, if you didn’t know the law,” he said.<\/p>\n
“But ultimately, the law imposes this really high duty of care to make sure that employees are trained appropriately because they don’t know better.<\/p>\n
“So in this case, even though he’s created the hazard, that was what he was told to do.<\/p>\n
“Even though it has involved a bug, it’s reasonably foreseeable that something might happen to startle a person, and if there is a hazard there that the employer has created then they should be responsible for the injury.”<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Paul Zapata says the law imposes a high duty of care on employers. (Supplied: Shine Lawyers)<\/p>\n
Mr Carey-Schofield said he hoped the case would raise awareness about workers’ rights and employers’ responsibilities.<\/p>\n
“If you get injured and they [the employer] are responsible, they need to know they are responsible,” he said.<\/p>\n
“People shouldn’t feel like they are left in the lurch because, ‘This is just a little accident’ \u2014 it’s definitely worth pursuing.”<\/p>\n
Daily life impacted<\/p>\n
Mr Carey-Schofield said the injury \u2014 which left him with “10 per cent of an elbow and very limited movement and lifting ability” \u2014 had impacted “every factor” of his life, including his mental health.<\/p>\n
“I have trouble showering, doing dishes, trying to do laundry,” he said.<\/p>\n
“With hobbies, I can’t go for a swim, I can’t go for a game of pool. I’m a musician and I still play but I’m in so much pain when I do.”<\/p>\n
He has not had a job since the injury but hopes to work again.<\/p>\n
“I’m probably going to have to study something and try and do my own thing on computers, but I have no experience with that kind of stuff \u2026 it’s a whole new thing for me and I’m quite worried.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A groundsman who tripped over a bag of rubbish after a wasp startled him says he wants workers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":183654,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[64,63,99,1783,117513,42523,32481,92092,19304,1049,117512,117514,117511],"class_list":["post-183653","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-business","tag-compensation","tag-court-appeal","tag-court-of-appeal","tag-damages","tag-dysart","tag-employer","tag-supreme-court","tag-trip-hazard","tag-wasp-injury","tag-workplace-injury"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183653","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183653"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183653\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/183654"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183653"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183653"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183653"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}