004_ACC_April_2016

BACK
INTRODUCTION
New Zealand has had a system of 24-hour no-fault cover for accidents since the first
Accident Compensation Act came into force in April 1974. A number of statutes have
followed this initial legislation, all focusing on the word ‘accident’. The new Act changes
that focus while retaining the original administering body, the Accident Compensation
Corporation (‘the Corporation’). Under the Accident Compensation Act 2001 much more
than in the past the emphasis is on preventing injury and, if an accident injury does occur,
on rehabilitating the injured person. With injured employees, the aim, if at all possible, is
to get them back to work as soon as practicable.
WORK-RELATED
PERSONAL INJURY
A work-related personal injury is one that occurs to
an employee while:
• he or she is at any place for the purposes
of his or her employment, including, for
example, a place that itself moves or a place
to or through which the claimant moves; or
• while he or she is having a break from
work for a meal or rest or refreshment
at his or her place of employment.
If an employee is off work because of the injury,
the employer in whose employment the injury
occurred must, for the first week of incapacity, pay
80 per cent of all lost earnings as earnings-related
compensation. This includes 80 per cent of earnings
lost from any other job the employee might hold.
Later entitlements are funded by an employer levy
payable into a Work Account. It is irrelevant to the
decision whether the person suffered a work-related
personal injury that, when the event causing the
injury occurred, he or she:
• may have been acting in contravention of
any Act or regulations applicable to the
employment, or in contravention of any
instructions, or in the absence of instructions; or
• may have been working under
an illegal contract; or
• may have been indulging in, or may
have been the victim of, misconduct,
skylarking, or negligence; or
• may have been the victim of a force of nature.
Motor vehicle injuries
WORK-RELATED
Work-related personal injuries involving the use of a
motor vehicle are those that occur:
• at the start or finish of the day’s work
when employees are being driven by
their employer, or by another employee,
in employer-provided transport;
• to an employee who is travelling by the most
direct practicable route between the workplace
and some other place to obtain treatment
needed for a work-related personal injury. The
subsequent injury will not be classified as workrelated
if the route taken interrupts, or deviates
unreasonably from the journey for purposes
unrelated to the employment or treatment.
NON WORK-RELATED
Motor vehicle injuries not classified as work-related
(but which nevertheless carry an entitlement to
first-week earnings-related compensation from the
employer) occur in circumstances where:
• the employee’s ‘place of work’ is a place that
itself moves or through which the claimant
moves. An example of an injury in a ‘place
that itself moves’ would be injury to a bus or
taxi driver. A supermarket employee run over
while collecting trolleys from the supermarket
car park would be an example of an injury in
a place through which the claimant moves;
• an employee is at work but is having a
break from work for rest or refreshment.
5