Worker suffers injury during mandatory work training: Is there a breach in duty of care?

The District Court of Queensland recently dealt with a case where a worker suffered injuries during mandatory work training.

The worker argued her employer breached its duty of care by requiring participation in a physical exercise without proper warm-up procedures, leading to both immediate and ongoing injuries. She sought damages for her injuries and subsequent loss of work capacity.

The case raised important questions about workplace safety protocols, employer duties during training exercises, and the role of pre-existing medical conditions in workplace injury claims.

Necessary training for the worker’s role

The worker was a correctional officer with nearly 20 years of service who needed to maintain her firearms licence as part of her role. In November 2020, she attended a mandatory firearms assessment with two other officers at a shooting range.

The assessment started with theory and weapon handling, followed by target practice that lasted about two hours. The worker needed three attempts to achieve the required 45 out of 50 successful shots.

After completing the shooting assessment, instructors introduced a reactionary gap test - a demonstration designed to show officers how far a potential threat could run before they could draw and fire their weapon.

The Court heard different accounts about whether the worker volunteered or was directed to participate in this test. According to witness testimony, while there may have been some initial reluctance, she ultimately agreed to participate.

Injury during work-mandated training session

During the test, the worker was instructed to run when hearing a whistle and stop upon hearing gunfire. While running, she experienced pain in her legs, and when she stopped, she felt intense pain from her buttocks to her knees.

The Court noted: "[The worker] felt pain in the back of her legs and buttocks that appears to have been caused by injury to her hamstrings... Her principal injury, as both orthopaedic surgeons agreed, was an aggravation of a previously unknown spinal degenerative disease."

A crucial aspect of the case emerged when medical records were examined. The records showed the worker had received chiropractic treatment for back pain several times before the incident, including treatment just months prior.

As stated in the judgment: "[The worker's] allied health records showed that she had been complaining of and obtaining chiropractic treatment for back pain on several occasions in and since 2018 and even then, she reported to a chiropractor that she had had lower back pain for years, rating up to 9 out of 10 on a pain scale."

‘Unnecessary’ risk in the workplace?

The worker's legal team argued that conducting an explosive physical exercise at the end of a long training session without proper warm-up created unnecessary risk. They emphasised that the test wasn't even a mandatory part of the assessment.

The employer countered by pointing out that correctional officers routinely need to respond quickly to emergencies without warm-up time.

The Court observed: "It is also relevant that the very nature of the job as a correctional services officer requires an officer to be able to undertake multiple tasks, including to run in response to a code call without stretching or warming up."

Employer’s duty of care

The Court found the employer had not breached its duty of care, emphasising that without knowledge of previous injuries or conditions, they couldn't have foreseen the risk.

The judgment stated: "In the absence of any history of injury to participants and of any knowledge that [the worker] had any physical condition that might give rise to a risk of injury, there was no foreseeable risk of injury to the participant's back in performing the test."

Additionally, the Court found the aggravation of the worker's condition had resolved by May 2021: "The ongoing lower back pain that [the worker] occasionally suffers appears to be related directly to the degenerative disease rather than to the particular aggravation of it."

The Court concluded: "[The employer] did not breach its duty of care. For that reason, [the worker's] claim fails."

The decision emphasised the importance of employees disclosing relevant medical conditions that might affect their ability to perform work tasks safely, while also highlighting that employers aren't automatically liable for injuries occurring during workplace training activities.