No Win No Fee Personal Injury Lawyers Brisbane and Gold Coast – Speak to us before making any decision to accept lump sum compensation for your work injury.
At the end of your workers’ compensation claim you may receive a Notice of Assessment from the workers’ compensation insurer allocating a permanent impairment percentage for your work injury. If you don’t know what a Notice of Assessment in a work injury claim is and would like to know more, please read our website post on Notices of Assessment at the end of your workers’ compensation claim.
Notices of Assessment & Permanent Impairment for Work Injury
Permanent Impairment is a percentage of impairment of bodily functioning allocated to an injury. Looking at your body as 100% functioning, an injury can impair your body’s normal functioning to a certain extent. This impairment in functioning is assessed by trained medical experts and accorded a percentage. The more serious the injury and its impact on your ability to function normally, the higher the percentage of permanent impairment accorded to the injury. For example, you may have sustained a back injury at work and doctors may assess your back injury as causing you a loss of bodily functioning of 10%.
Permanent Impairment in work injury claims in Queensland is assessed under the Guide to Evaluation of Permanent Impairment or GEPI as it is more commonly called.
When Statutory Lump Sum Offers are Made by Workcover or Workers’ Compensation Insurer
If your work injury has been assessed as suffering permanent impairment of more than 0% in your Notice of Assessment issued by Workcover (or the self-insurer) at the end of your workers’ compensation claim, you will be offered a Lump Sum Payment. This is called a Statutory Lump Sum Offer. The reason it is called this is because your right to this Lump Sum Offer is purely by way of legislation, namely, the Workers’ Compensation & Rehabilitation Act 2003. The purpose of the offer is to provide injured workers with compensation where they have suffered an injury in the course of their work, on their way to or from work, or during a work break, which has left them with permanent impairment.
It should be noted however, that Statutory Lump Sum Compensation is only available to those who bring a workers’ compensation claim for their work injury. So if you haven’t brought a workers’ compensation claim, and you are later assessed as having a degree of permanent impairment of over 0%, you will not be entitled to Statutory Lump Sum Compensation. You will however, still be entitled to pursue a Common Law Claim for Damages for your work injury.
Statutory Lump Sum Offers versus Common Law Damages
Statutory Lump Sum Offers made at the end of a workers’ compensation claim should not be confused with lump sum compensation received by way of a Common Law Claim for Damages for a work injury. A Common Law Claim for Damages is where a law suit is brought against the employer to recover damages for the work injury and all consequential loss and damage sustained because of it.
With the Statutory Lump Sum offer, the compensation offered is based on a set calculation and does not provide full and proper compensation for the impact the work injury has had upon the individual worker’s pre-injury lifestyle and employment, as in the case of a Common Law Claim.
How Much Statutory Lump Sum Compensation Will I be Offered for my Work Injury?
For every 1% of permanent impairment assessed, you will be offered around $3000 . For example, say your work injury is stated in your Notice of Assessment as causing you permanent impairment of 3%, then you will receive a Lump Sum Offer of around $9,000 with your Notice of Assessment.
In cases of very serious and debilitating injury, an additional lump sum amount may be added, and where the injury results in high care needs, a further additional amount for future care & assistance may also be added to the offer.
The Irrevocable Election – Always Speak to an Expert Personal Injury Lawyer
However, there is another reason for this Lump Sum Offer being made at the end of your workers’ compensation claim and this brings us to the Irrevocable Election that workers must make when considering this Lump Sum Offer. If your work injury is assessed at permanent impairment of 20% or more in the Notice of Assessment, then you can take the lump sum offer made at the end of your workers’ compensation claim and still bring a claim for Common Law Damages for your work injury to recover all the loss and damage you have sustained, and will sustain in the future because of it. However, if your injury is assessed at less than 20%, you must make a choice – take the Lump Sum Offer or sue for Common Law Damages. And once you have made that choice, you cannot go back on it. This is called the”Irrevocable Election”.
Typically, permanent impairment assessments for work injuries in Queensland are quite low. Only the more serious injuries achieve 20% or more permanent impairment. Therefore, in most cases, the worker must choose between taking the Lump Sum Offer or pursuing a Common Law Claim.
Please note also that should you suffer a mixture of physical and psychological injury due to your work incident, the permanent impairment assessed for your physical injuries cannot be added together with your psychiatric injury permanent impairment – they are taken as being quite separate impairment assessments. You must make the choice to take the lump sum offer for the physical injuries & a separate choice in regard to your psychological injuries.
In Most Cases of Work Injury, Proper Compensation is Only Achieved by way of a Common Law Claim for Damages
In the majority of cases, it is only by way of a Common Law Damages Claim that an injured worker will be fully and properly compensated for their work injury. This is because a Common Law Claim provides compensation for all the loss and damage sustained from the injury. This includes compensation for pain & suffering, loss of past and future income, past and future medical and out of pocket expenses associated with the injury, past and future care needs, past and future superannuation benefits, as well as interest on damages. A Statutory Lump Sum Offer does not do this.
A good example is the case of Mr Austin (Austin v Parmalat Australia Ltd (2013) QSC 227) who sustained what was described as a minor head injury in a work incident, and was allocated a 0% permanent impairment for his injury in his Notice of Assessment, but received an award of damages at Court by way of a Common Law Claim, at over $1.25 million.
Not Everyone Has a Common Law Claim to Pursue – There Must Be Negligence or a Wrongful Act by the Employer or a Co-Worker
There are some limited cases however, where the Lump Sum Offer is the better option for a worker. This is because not everyone has a Common Law Claim to pursue. Entitlement to sue for damages is dependent on the work injury being the result of the negligent or wrongful actions of the employer or a co-worker. Where this does not apply, then the Lump Sum Offer is the only means of compensation open to the worker.
Take note however – you should never assess your own case. ALWAYS, ALWAYS, ALWAYS speak to a personal injury expert when assessing whether you’ve a Common Law Claim to pursue. There is a very high duty of care on employers in the workplace, and in the majority of work injury cases the injury has arisen as a result of the negligence of the employer or a co-worker. Making the wrong response to the Statutory Lump Sum Offer could mean you miss out on significant compensation, which you may need in the future to protect yourself and your family.
No Win No Fee Personal Injury Lawyers are workers’ compensation and Common Law Claim experts when it comes to work injury claims. Our Senior Personal Injury Lawyer will be able to tell you within a few minutes as to whether you’ve a valid Common Law Claim to pursue for your work injury. Call, Chat, email us or submit your enquiry via one of our FREE Instant Case Appraisal forms today.
How Long do I have to Make My Decision on the Statutory Lump Sum Offer?
When you receive the Notice of Assessment and associated Lump Sum Offer, the Notice will tell you that you have 20 business days in which to make your decision to reject or accept the Offer. However, if you do not make a decision within this time, the offer does not lapse, but it is automatically taken as deferred. So this means you can make the decision to take the offer at a later time.
However, if you commence a Common Law Claim for Damages for your work injury (a Notice of Claim for Damages is served on Workcover Queensland or self-insurer) then the Lump Sum Offer is automatically taken as being rejected.
It is VERY IMPORTANT That You Speak to a Personal Injury Lawyer Before Making a Decision
Because of the irrevocable nature of your decision whether to accept or reject a Lump Sum Offer at the end of your workers’ compensation claim, it is imperative you speak to expert personal injury lawyers before you make any response to it, as the wrong response could mean you lose your right to significant compensation and damages.
No Win No Fee Personal Injury Lawyers – Loads of Experience in Work Injury Claims & Workplace Injury
No Win No Fee Personal Injury Lawyers are experts in the field of work injury and workplace accident claims and can advise you what your rights are and how much compensation you should receive for your work injury.
We offer our services throughout Queensland on a No Win No Fee basis, which means that if we don’t get compensation for you, then you pay us nothing at all. We also offer FREE legal advice on a 24 hour basis, advising Queenslanders whether they have a personal injury claim to pursue and how much compensation they are entitled to. All enquiries are FREE of any charge, so they cost you nothing at all, and they are completely confidential and without obligation.
With offices in Brisbane City and in Surfers Paradise on the Gold Coast, so we are both Brisbane Personal Injury Lawyers and Gold Coast Personal Injury Lawyers, but we provide our legal services throughout Queensland.
You have a number of options in contacting us to discuss your case – you can call us on 1300 388 383, Livechat with us on our website or send us your enquiry via one of our FREE Instant Case Appraisal forms on our website. And remember, all enquiries are FREE of charge, so it will cost you nothing at all to find out if you have a claim.