Our client had sustained serious injuries to his left arm in March 2010 during the course of his employment. Our client was undertaking casual work and at the same time, studying to improve his employment prospects.
Under the workers compensation scheme, the insurer paid for his medical treatment, weekly compensation during periods of incapacity and a lump sum amount of $41,000.00, which is a tax free benefit.
The injured worker met the requirements to pursue a work injury damages claim being a common law claim for negligence against the employer.
The employer’s insurer was reluctant to offer any significant amount for damages. Their reasoning is that compensation which is payable for a work injury damages claim is limited to economic loss only. That is correct and they successfully showed that our client was able to find alternate employment and was in fact earning more than he was earning prior to his injury.
With our experience here at Gerard Malouf & Partners we persevered with the claim and being headstrong in our negotiations we prepared the claim in a way to ensure the optimum outcome for this client.
In this instance, our client was strongly considering the insurer’s very conservative offers however, with perseverance, we insisted that we continue with negotiations and this gave our client confidence to also persevere with the process.
Eventually, to our client’s surprise, the insurer had lifted the level of offers and at the end of the negotiations; our client received a total amount of approximately $220,000.00 in tax free lump sum compensation. It seems that although there have been law changes in workers compensation; Workcover is still allowing good payouts for compensation to deserved workers. At GMP lawyers we put all effort into a claim to ensure that the true value of a claim is recognised and accepted by insurers’, Workcover and the Courts.
Even when the going seems to be tough for the lawyers at Gerard Malouf & Partners, with perseverance and drive, more often than not, we achieve our desired outcome. With that we have very satisfied clients, which make Gerard Malouf & Partners a highly reputable law firm.
