Split decision leaves employers guessing where liability ends when workplace is employee's home
A work-from-home injury claim involving a pet fence has left Australian employment judges divided and HR managers without clear answers on where liability ends.
Lauren Vercoe was about an hour into her workday when she stood up from her sunroom desk to make coffee. It was a routine authorized break on 19 September 2022, the kind her employer actively encouraged. But the trip to her kitchen ended with a fractured arm and knee injury after she tripped over a metal pet fence blocking the doorway.
The fence, about 60 centimeters high, was not there for work. Vercoe had put it up the day before to keep a colleague's puppy away from her rabbit while she looked after the dog at home.
Her employer, the City of Charles Sturt, approved her request to work from home that day. The council had expanded work-from-home arrangements during the pandemic, eventually extending them to all staff. From July 2020, Vercoe worked consistently from home, setting up her office in the sunroom where the accident happened.
The council even produced videos encouraging staff working remotely to take regular breaks, get out in the sunshine, and enjoy time with their pets. Vercoe was doing exactly that when she fell, requiring an ambulance to the Royal Adelaide Hospital.
But when she claimed workers' compensation, the Local Government Association rejected it. The insurer accepted she was working from home with approval and on an authorized break. What they disputed was whether her employment significantly caused the injury, or whether it was simply a domestic accident that happened to occur during work hours.
The tribunal initially sided with Vercoe, reasoning that the fence was part of her workplace and she was injured during an authorized activity at her place of employment. The insurer appealed.
On 8 December, three judges of the South Australian Employment Tribunal handed down a split decision that has only muddied the waters further.
Two judges found the original decision took too narrow a view. Just because the home was the authorized workplace did not mean every hazard there automatically became an employment-related risk. The pet fence was temporary, served a personal purpose unconnected to work, and was the kind of everyday obstacle found in private life, not something peculiar to a workplace.
The judges also noted that Vercoe may have had two reasons for her break: making coffee and checking on the puppy. These factors needed weighing, they said, not simply assuming that location plus authorized break equals compensable injury.
The third judge disagreed entirely. A workplace hazard is a workplace hazard, he argued, whether temporary or permanent, whether serving a work purpose or a personal one. If the employer authorizes the workplace and the break, injuries from hazards encountered there should be compensable.
The case now returns to the original decision maker for reconsideration, leaving employers managing remote workers in a familiar but uncomfortable position: waiting for clarity that may be a long time coming.
