The trial judge's reasoning came from neither side - and the worker never got to answer it
The NSW Court of Appeal ordered a rehearing of a coal miner's back-injury claim, finding the trial judge made two errors of law.
In a decision handed down on July 21, 2026, the Court of Appeal set aside a District Court verdict that had gone in the employer's favour and sent the case back for redetermination.
The worker had spent decades in coal mining and joined Clarence Colliery Pty Limited in April 2021. He claimed compensation under the Workers Compensation Act 1987 (NSW). He said he injured his lower back on September 20, 2022, while changing in the mine bathhouse - on his account, he removed his shirt, twisted to hang it, and felt what he described in evidence as a "thud" in his back. He later had surgery, on December 14, 2022.
The single incident was not his only argument, and that became central to the appeal.
His pleaded case also said that "[o]ver the course of [his] employment, he developed intermittent back pain due to repetitive heavy lifting in the course of his employment." Under the version of the law that applies to coal miners, aggravating a disease can itself amount to an "injury," provided employment was a contributing factor. So the claim ran on two tracks: a specific incident, and a gradual aggravation over years of work.
That distinction matters for anyone who assesses injury claims. The two are separate legal routes, and a claim can fail on one and still stand on the other.
At trial, the District Court found for the employer. The judge doubted the bathhouse account, reasoning that a disc of that kind usually tears under heavy load and twisting, and noting that the worker had accepted he was standing upright, not bending, when the pain began. The judge described the mechanism as implausible.
The Court of Appeal did not decide whether the worker was in fact injured. Instead, it identified two problems with how the trial was conducted.
First, the judge accepted that heavy mining work can aggravate a degenerative back condition, but did not go on to decide whether that aggravation satisfied the legal definition of "injury." The appeal court held that leaving that question unresolved was an error of law. It noted that the worker's treating neurosurgeon had supported the aggravation pathway, describing the earlier heavy lifting as the significant factor and the bathhouse moment as the "straw that broke the camel's back." A second doctor engaged by the worker, an orthopaedic surgeon, considered the main problem to be a distinct injury event but also said the disc degeneration most likely resulted from the nature and conditions of the worker's employment - which, the appeal court observed, was enough to meet the injury definition. The employer's two experts disagreed that the condition was work-related.
Second, the appeal court found that the judge had rejected the incident account largely on his own medical reasoning about how discs tear - reasoning that was not drawn from either side's evidence, matched no submission made to him, and was never put to the worker so he could respond. The court held that if a decision is going to turn on the decision-maker's own theory, the affected party must have the chance to answer it, and that deciding the case on that basis was a second error of law.
The appeal was allowed and the matter remitted to the District Court for redetermination. The appeal court expressly said it could not itself decide whether the worker was entitled to compensation, or assess any amount. Costs of the appeal were awarded to the worker, and the costs of the original hearing were left to follow the final outcome.
For HR and workplace-safety leaders, two practical points emerge. When assessing or contesting an injury claim, the "nature and conditions of employment" pathway can sustain a claim even where a single incident looks doubtful, and it turns on medical evidence that may need to be engaged directly. And in any process that ends in a decision against a person - an investigation, a review or a hearing - the reasoning used against them should be one they have had a fair chance to answer.
