Australian worker injured during sex denied compensation

A public servant injured while she was having sex on a work trip can't get any compensation. She has been told she should have let her employer know she planned to get frisky if she wanted to be able to claim worker's compensation. The woman, who suffered a nose injury and damaged teeth during the "moment of passion" in 2007, has had her bid for compensation knocked back by the Administrative Appeals Tribunal (AAT).

Her injuries occurred when a glass light fitting came away from the wall as was having sex with a man in a country town. "It could be that (the applicant), in a moment of passion, reached up and grabbed the light fitting, or it could be that the man banged against it," the women's barrister, Leo Gray, told a hearing last month. Activities pursued in a hotel room "in the ordinary purview of human life" should be compensatable, he said. "If it happens at the place the employer has encouraged you to be for the evening, and doesn't involve gross misconduct or self-harm, why shouldn't it be."



But counsel for the work safety agency Comcare, Andrew Berger, told the appeal hearing "a frolic of the applicant's own" could only result in compensation in certain circumstances. "If it is a quintessentially private activity it is not fair that taxpayers pay for the consequences of that activity," Mr Berger said. While sleeping, showering and using the toilet were incidental to work "having sex is a different kettle of fish", he said.

"If they wanted to be protected by worker's compensation they would need to let their employer know." While the AAT upheld Comcare's original decision not to award compensation, it refused to publish its reasons. The material was suppressed because the tribunal "received concrete evidence that the applicant may act on suicidal tendencies if the reasons were made public".