McCURRY v LAMB [1992] NSWCA 169

McCURRY v LAMB

SUPREME COURT OF NEW SOUTH WALES COURT OF APPEAL

CLARKE, HANDLEY and SHELLER JJA 3 August 1992, 9 December 1992 [1992] NSWCA 169

WORKERS COMPENSATION — whether injury sustained "in the course of" employment. The worker, a shearer, was part of a shearing team working on a sheep station some distance from his home. The shearing contractor, his employer, arranged for the members of the team to live in accommodation on the station. The shearing team included two female rouseabouts who lived in separate accommodation nearby. The worker was shot and injured by a fellow shearer while asleep in bed with one of the female rouseabouts in her sleeping quarters. The worker had worked that day and intended to work the following day. The trial Judge held that the worker's injuries arose in the course of his employment and awarded compensation. On appeal: held (1) The liability of an employer for injuries sustained by a worker "in the course of" his or her employment depends upon the existence of a temporal relationship between the employment and the injury. (2) The time spent by the worker away from his home on the sheep station constituted one overall period or episode of work. Hatzimanolis vy ANI (1992) 173 CLR 473 followed. (3) The employer had induced or encouraged the worker to reside on the station during the week. Sleeping at the camp was incidental to the worker's employment. (4) Accordingly the worker's injuries arose in the course of his employment.

Clarke JA I agree that the appeal should be dismissed generally for the reasonsgiven by Handley JA.

Handley JA This is an appeal by the employer from awards of weekly and lump sumcompensation made by Moroney CCJ in favour of the respondent worker. The appeal to this Court is a full appeal on fact as well as law.

On 7 November 1989 at about 11.30pm the worker, a shearer, was shot and badly injured while asleep in the jackeroo's cottage on Oolambuyan Station about seventy miles north of Deniliquin. He was employed by the appellant, a shearing contractor, as part of a team of eight shearers, a wool classer, a wool presser, a married cook and two female rouseabouts. The appellant had the shearing contract for the station and the team arrived there on Sunday 29 October. The appellant himself, the wool classer, and the two female rouseabouts were quartered in the jackeroo's cottage which was about 400 yards from the shearers' quarters. There were three bedrooms and a lounge room in the cottage. The men had separate bedrooms and the two girls shared the third bedroom which had two single beds.