Where is the workplace line drawn?

The parameters around workplace safety may seem cut and dried, but a recent ruling may challenge what constitutes a ‘workplace’, according to an article published by the Health and Safety Bulletin.

Article author Jeff Salton said a fleet services manager at a transport company has successfully appealed a decision to deny a compensation claim. The detail that makes the case so interesting is the worker’s location at the time of injury.

According to the report, the man was showering at home at night and ran to answer his work phone, resulting in a fall on wet floor tiles and a subsequent back injury. He told the commission that his manager had repeatedly reminded him in the past that he was always on call and had reprimanded him on a number of occasions for failing to answer calls. To that end, this made the injury work-related in his mind.

When the commissioner asked why the man felt compelled to answer his phone, he said that driver and public safety were foremost, meaning that he needed to do whatever he could to ensure that a truck breakdown was addressed as quickly and safely as possible.

The commission took the view that the employer induced or encouraged the worker to engage in the activity of answering his work phone and therefore found that the injury was work-related.

According to the article, the commissioner said, “I am satisfied on the evidence before the commission that the [worker] has established a causal relationship between his employment and his [back injury]. The proximity of time between the fall in the bathroom and the onset of the pain, in the absence of any competing causal incident, leads me to conclude, on the balance of probabilities, that the [worker’s] employment was a significant contributing factor to his injury.”

He concluded that the worker suffered an injury within the meaning of s 32 of the Act and that the employer should pay the worker’s medical and incidental costs.