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Workplace Duty of Care Lawyers QLD

Negligence in the workplace: a comprehensive guide

Going to work every day is challenging enough without enduring a dodgy work environment. In Queensland, you have the legal right to be protected from workplace injuries, including mental health conditions. Workplace Health and Safety (WHS) laws protect workers’ welfare, health, and safety.

Hence, your employer is legally responsible for ensuring workplace safety by taking reasonable precautions. When you have a work injury due to workplace negligence, our compensation lawyers can help you claim work injury damages, 100% no win, no fee.

The Workplace Health and Safety Act 2011 (QLD) states that health refers to psychological well-being and physical welfare. So, if you were physically injured while using equipment or acquired a mental illness because of harassment and bullying, QLD workplace health and safety laws would apply in these and many other circumstances.

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What is My Employer’s Duty of Care?

Your employer’s primary duty of care is to provide you with a safe, healthy workplace. This reasonable care obligation encompasses a wide range of safety responsibilities. Your boss cannot simply ensure that all the onsite equipment is secure and risk-free. Employer responsibilities also include providing sufficient training and education to ensure all workers have the necessary skills to do their jobs safely and reduce the risk of work accidents, injury and health risks.

Your employer’s duty of care obligations include the following:

  • Provide a physical work environment free of psychiatric and physical safety and health hazards
  • Safe work systems and processes
  • Properly maintained equipment and machinery
  • Supervision, education, instruction, and information to ensure workers can safely perform their job roles

You could have the legal right to seek workplace compensation when you have been physically or psychologically harmed or acquired an illness due to employer negligence. Contact our work injury lawyers to learn about your rights to make a negligence claim. It’s free to know where you stand.

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Can I Make a Workers' Compensation Claim?

Whether you work full-time, part-time, or casually, you could claim workers’ compensation benefits if you have suffered harm due to a potential breach of duty in Queensland. A physical injury, an occupationally acquired illness, and mental health conditions all qualify. Please get in touch with Splatt Lawyers if:

  • You have developed a new work-related illness or injury
  • Your work has worsened an existing health condition
  • You have a psychiatric disorder related to your job
  • You could seek lump sum compensation for permanent impairment
  • WorkCover has rejected your claim
  • Your employer is forcing you to go back to work
  • WorkCover won’t fund some of your expenses
  • You want to understand your legal rights

It’s crucial to consult a specialist workplace negligence lawyer for negligence claims. They can guide you through the complexities of workplace injuries, including psychological injury claims due to negligence, ensuring you understand your entitlements and the unique nature of each claim.

QLD Workers Compensation Legislation

The Work Health and Safety Act 2011 assigns all persons operating a business a principal duty to manage health and safety risks by identifying and removing them to the extent reasonably practicable. This safety legislation extends to all employers, principal contractors, self-employed, designers, manufacturers, suppliers, and importers of workplace structures and substances.

Legislation relating to WHS encompasses:

  • Codes of Practice
  • National Compliance and Enforcement Policy
  • Model Workplace Health and Safety Act
  • Model Workplace Health & Safety Regulations

In Queensland, workplace health and safety laws provide a sensible and consistent legislative structure to secure the welfare of employees. Every employer has an obligation to abide by WHS regulations contained within various legislative acts. Business owner obligations include:

  • Provide a healthy and safe work environment
  • Protect worker safety: both physical well-being and mental health
  • Provide safe work systems
  • Maintain current WHS policies
  • Audit and remedy workplace risks
  • Comply with industry codes of practice

What is Covered by Work Health and Safety Rules?

The QLD WHS Act 2011 provides codes of practice with sensible advice on meeting the health and safety standards covered by the Act. These handy guides outline identifying and dealing with injury risks, including implementing control measures such as engineering and administrative controls and using personal protective equipment like gloves and safety glasses.

These documents were updated on 1st July 2018, requiring compliance of all duty holders with the code of conduct for keeping employees safe. These are some of the work situations where a code exists.

  • Working with explosives
  • Cash in Transit
  • Concrete Pumping and Formwork
  • Working in confined spaces
  • Working with electricity
  • Demolition and excavation
  • Hazardous Materials and Chemicals
  • Workplace first aid
  • Working with horses
  • Managing and controlling asbestos
  • Working with excessive noise
  • Managing the risk of falls
  • Occupational diving and snorkelling
  • Tower cranes and mobile cranes
  • Concrete construction

Employers can be prosecuted when they fail to meet the requirements outlined in their applicable industry code of practice.

Which Workers' Compensation Benefits Can I Claim?

When your employer fails to fulfil their legal responsibility, and you suffer a serious injury that impacts your earning capacity, you can claim WorkCover insurance benefits such as:

  1. Weekly payments
  2. Rehabilitation and medical expenses
  3. Death benefits for fatal work injuries
  4. A lump sum payment for whole-person impairment (also known as permanent impairment)
  5. A common law payout, which is a full and final settlement that ends all further entitlements

Your work injury damages can include compensation for the following:

  • Economic loss like lost wages, superannuation, medical bills and future loss (in some cases)
  • Non-economic losses like pain and suffering
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Who is Responsible for Creating a Safe Workplace?

Workplace safety is a shared obligation between business owners and their workers. Everyone is responsible for maintaining a safe working environment by consulting on safety matters. The business owner has a legal duty to create a safe workspace, but employees should contribute by alerting their boss to potential hazards.

Well-written OHS policies and procedures help ensure that everyone understands their responsibilities and how they can help prevent workplace accidents. They set an expectation of everyone’s obligation to keep each other free from harm. Developing a framework for the identification and removal of injury and health risks helps ensure a safe environment.

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The Occupation Health and Safety Policy is a document that outlines the company’s commitment to OHS.

OHS procedures are a step-by-step guide to the safe completion of work tasks. Creating these procedures should be a collaborative process between business owners/managers and employees, ensuring everyone has a positive attitude towards safety. OHS policies must be accessible and current for all stakeholders. Industries with a higher level of risk are likely to have a higher volume of procedures. OHS documents frequently cover:

  • How Work Health and Safety problems are resolved.
  • Procedures for collaborating with employees on safety issues
  • Workplace risk audit processes
  • The provision of training and information
  • Procedures for creating action plans and implementing safety measures
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How Splatt Lawyers Help Claim Workers Compensation Benefits

Under QLD workers compensation legislation, you can expect management commitment to a work environment without risks wherever you are employed. This means a place that is free from psychological harm and that removes threats to protect your physical health.

Sadly, your boss might breach Occupational Health and Safety Rules, and if things go wrong, there should be legal consequences. If this is your situation and you are injured, you can make a work injury damages claim. To increase your chance of success, please contact our experienced workers’ compensation lawyers for informed legal advice.

Before starting a work injury damages claim, you should seek independent legal advice so you are aware of the potential costs and regulations associated with hiring legal representation. Furthermore, what you do following your injury, illness, or psychological harm will impact your legal action, so contact us directly. It costs nothing to know your legal options, and you pay nothing until we win your case. Call 1800 700 125.

Workplace Health and Duty Lawyers Near You

However your injury happened, you need expert legal advice for a workplace negligence claim. At such a time, it’s reassuring to know that Splatt Lawyers is nearby. Choose your location:

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Employer's Negligence in the Workplace FAQs

Employers are responsible for providing a safe working environment for employees. But what do employers need to do to fulfil that responsibility?

The law says that employers must keep workplaces free from risk and injury. They have a duty of care towards their employees to ensure they’re protected while carrying out their duties. Employers have a legal duty to safeguard their employees from harm from hazardous conditions or equipment used at work.

Employers have specific obligations to provide a safe work system and a safe working environment. These include adequate training and supervision, ensuring equipment is fit for purpose, adequate lighting, protective barriers, and sufficient warning signs.

If an accident does happen, then your employer must investigate thoroughly to establish how it happened. This investigation should identify the cause of the accident and determine whether it was avoidable.

Finally, your employer must provide a suitable method of reporting incidents or complaints about unsafe practices. You can report issues anonymously or tell someone else who can help resolve problems.

The Fair Work Act says employers must take reasonable steps to protect workers from hazards and risks. In deciding what those steps are, you must consider the following:

  • The likelihood of the threat occurring
  • The harm that could result from the hazard
  • What a worker knows or should know about the risk
  • Whether there are alternatives that would eliminate or reduce the hazard

Everyone has a legal obligation to take reasonable measures to ensure the safety of other people at work or in work-related activities. When you see something likely to cause harm, you must take action to help minimise the risk. Your employer has a general legal duty to maintain a healthy and safe work environment for workers (and others).

Working from home is popular because it allows people to spend less time commuting and more time doing what they want. However, working remotely has some drawbacks, such as isolation and lack of supervision. For example, remote workers may feel like they don’t have anyone watching over them, which can lead to mental health problems.

The good news is that employers are still responsible for providing a safe workplace and ensuring employees are protected from harm while working from home. They must ensure you can access the tools and equipment needed to perform your job safely through regular meetings and communication.

The employer could have vicarious liability when a co-worker causes a work-related injury to another employee. In this circumstance, the employer and co-workers could be liable for damages.

However, when you are harmed on the job, an insurance company is liable to pay your compensation in most situations. A skilled compensation lawyer would help determine who was responsible and who owed work injury damages.

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