Journey Injury Defined

A judge has outlined the circumstances that would satisfy the test for a journey accident to be accepted as a workers compensation claim.

The case arose out of a female lawyer claiming a motor vehicle accident on the way to work was a journey-injury under the South Australian return to work legislation because she was carrying work files in the car.

The court found the lawyer’s company did not specifically instruct the lawyer to carry the files or to undertake any special trip related to the files eg routine travel to work.

The judge’s findings concluded that cases that satisfied the journey-injury test typically had something unique about the trip or circumstances of how it arose or was carried out. Some examples include; being recalled to work from home to deal with an emergency, or going to the post office to pick up work mail, remote travel in company vehicle and or at company determined timing.