Compensation & Prevention

Below is the summary for compensation and prevention (seriously contemplating transferring to law...)
I'll be away tomorrow, so apologies to everyone for missing their role plays.

COMPENSATION FOR HEARING LOSS

Compensation refers to a monetary provision made as payment for a service or reparation for some wrongdoing. In the case of this week’s PCL, the term most likely refers to Worker’s Compensation - commonly referred to as “Compo” – due to the fact that Des’ hearing was most likely damaged by his work as a mechanic.

The WorkCover Authority is the scheme in Victoria that manages compensation in Victoria. The Authority liaises between the employee, employer and the insurers. Any employee that has been injured may apply for compensation and there is no need to prove that the employer was negligent, simply that the injury sustained was a result of their employment. This makes the scheme a “no-fault” system. In order to claim compensation, Des must prove that he has “Industrial Deafness” as a result of his work.

Industrial Deafness is defined by the Victorian Accident Compensation Act 1985 as “any condition of deafness caused by exposure, continued exposure or periods of continuous exposure to industrial noise.” The employee must have also suffered a reasonable amount of hearing loss, that being a loss that “impacts upon the normal function and interaction” of the worker.

The provision of compensation is intended for the employee to use to pay for medical costs of assessing and maintaining the health of the employee’s ears/hearing and a lump sum of money proportional to the impairment caused. Such a lump sum is determined by standard tables as used by the Victorian WorkCover Authority as well as several private insurers. The payment of medical costs is subject to the medical treatment being reasonable, that is how efficient it is in reaching the aim of restoring as, much as possible, the hearing acuity, direction sense and social interaction of the employee to pre-damage level of function.

If the employee has been employed by several employers and hearing damage is believed to been the result of a gradual development over the course of such employment, so long as no previous claim has been made, then the current employer must bear the full costs of any compensation claim. Even if the employee has been non-compliant with safety regulations set down by the employer, e.g. refusing to wearing earplugs, etc. the employee still gets compensation as the scheme is no-blame scheme.

For further remittance (a LOT further!), the injured employee may also sue their employee for negligence. The PCL is not very clear in this aspect. Des appears to be the manager of the garage. Whether this means that he self-employed or he is employed by a corporation that owns a chain of garages is unclear. If Des was self-employed, it would be difficult to find a lawyer willing to bring charges against Des himself. However, if Des is the employee of a company, he may sue if there is a case for employer negligence. This may result in the court ordering the employer to pay further compensation or the two parties may reach an out-of-court settlement.

For negligence to be proved, the plaintiff must establish that the company has failed to meet its duty as an employer under the Occupational Health and Safety Act. In Des’ case, the regulations concerned involve those regarding noise in workplaces. These regulations require the employee to identify and control as much as possible noises in an area where the noise intensity exceeds 85 dB for 8 hours of each day. If the noise can not be controlled sufficiently, the employer must limit the duration of employee exposure to the noise and/or provide ear protection and audiometric tests every second year to monitor employees’ hearing. Any abnormal test must also be reported to the WorkCover Authority.

Aside from the regulations and ear protection, further simple preventative measures can be taken such as good maintenance of machinery to reduce noisy operation, rubber or spring mountings to reduce vibration, enclosures, screens or walls to contain noise, presses rather than hammers to straighten metal and the reduction of the use of compressed air.