Lifting, carrying, pushing and pulling are part of countless jobs, from warehousing and construction to aged care, nursing, cleaning and retail. They are also one of the leading causes of serious workplace injury in New South Wales. A single bad lift can rupture a disc or tear a shoulder, and years of repetitive strain can wear a body down until it can no longer do the work it once did. When that happens because the work was not made safe, you may have more than just a workers compensation claim.
Manual handling injuries are often dismissed, by employers and sometimes by injured workers themselves, as just part of the job, or as the worker’s own fault for lifting the wrong way. Neither is usually the full picture. Employers have real duties to make manual handling safe, and where they fall short, a seriously injured worker can have a work injury damages claim.
This guide explains your entitlements after a manual handling injury, including how gradual injuries are treated and when your employer may be liable. Please treat it as general information rather than advice about your own claim, and you should seek legal advice about your particular situation before making decisions about it.
The two ways manual handling injuries happen
One of the most important things to understand is that a manual handling injury does not have to come from a single dramatic event. It can, but it does not have to, and this trips up many injured workers.
| A single incident injury | A cumulative injury | |
|---|---|---|
| How it happens | One event, such as a heavy, sudden or awkward lift | Repeated strain over months or years of manual handling |
| Typical examples | A disc injury from lifting a load, a shoulder injury catching something | Injury built up from constant lifting, carrying or repetitive tasks |
| Can you claim? | Yes | Yes, an injury from the nature and conditions of your work over time is claimable |
| Common misconception | That only a dramatic accident counts | That gradual injuries do not count, when in fact they do |
The second column matters enormously. A great deal of manual handling injury is cumulative, building slowly until one day the body gives way, and many workers wrongly assume that because there was no single accident, they have no claim. An injury caused by the nature and conditions of your work over time is a compensable injury, and so is the aggravation of an existing condition by the demands of your job. If your back or shoulder was manageable before years of heavy lifting and is not now, that is worth advice, not resignation.
Can you claim work injury damages for a manual handling injury?
Yes, in the right circumstances. Every worker injured through manual handling can access workers compensation, which is a no fault scheme providing weekly payments and medical and treatment expenses regardless of who was to blame. That is the foundation, and it flows without you having to prove anything about fault.
Beyond that, where your employer’s negligence caused or contributed to your injury, and your injury is serious enough, you may also have a work injury damages claim. This is a common law claim that compensates your past and future loss of earnings and superannuation, and for a worker whose capacity for physical work has been permanently affected, that can be substantial. It generally requires your injury to reach at least 15 per cent whole person impairment for a physical injury, and it requires you to prove your employer was negligent. We explain the claim in our guide to work injury damages and how negligence is established in our guide on proving employer negligence.
Your employer’s duty to make manual handling safe
Employers are not entitled to treat manual handling as an unavoidable hazard that workers simply have to endure. The law requires them to manage the risks of hazardous manual tasks, and in practice that duty covers a good deal.
A reasonable employer is generally expected to assess the manual handling risks in the work, and then to do something about them. That can mean providing mechanical aids such as trolleys, hoists, lifting equipment or conveyors so that heavy loads do not have to be lifted by hand. It means arranging team lifts, and having enough staff on hand, where a load is too much for one person. It means keeping loads to a reasonable weight and size, designing the work so that repetitive strain is reduced, for example through job rotation, and setting a pace and workload that do not force unsafe shortcuts. And it means providing proper training and instruction, and listening when workers raise concerns about tasks that are unsafe.
Where an employer fails in these areas, and a worker is injured as a result, that failure can amount to the negligence a work injury damages claim requires.
What employer negligence looks like in manual handling
In our experience, the failures that most often ground a manual handling claim are practical and recognisable. Being required to lift loads that were too heavy, or to do so without any mechanical aid that should have been provided. Being left to perform a lift alone when it plainly needed two people, often because the site was understaffed. Never being trained in how to perform the task safely. Working under production or time pressure that made safe lifting impossible. The absence of any real risk assessment for obviously hazardous tasks. And, tellingly, hazards or difficulties that had been raised before and simply ignored.
That last point is powerful. If workers had complained that a task was unsafe, or if the same kind of injury had happened before, it becomes very difficult for an employer to argue that the risk was not foreseeable or that it acted reasonably.
What you need to prove, and when the employer blames your lifting
A work injury damages claim rests on evidence, both of your employer’s failure and of the injury and loss it caused. The evidence that tends to matter includes the nature of the work and the loads involved, whether mechanical aids or assistance were available, your training records, any earlier complaints or incidents, witness accounts from colleagues, and the medical evidence connecting your injury to the work. As with any claim, this evidence is strongest when gathered early.
A word about a common tactic. Employers, and their insurers, sometimes respond to a manual handling claim by blaming the worker’s own lifting technique, arguing that you simply lifted incorrectly. It is worth knowing that the law does not accept this as easily as employers would like. A safe system of work is expected to make allowance for the reality that people doing repetitive, physical work will occasionally move awkwardly or make a momentary error, and an employer generally cannot shift responsibility onto a worker for the very kind of lapse its safe system was supposed to guard against. An allegation that you caused your own injury by poor technique is often an argument to be met, not a reason to give up.
Manual handling injuries, particularly to the back, also frequently attract arguments that the problem is really pre existing degeneration rather than the work. That is a distinct issue we deal with in our guide on pre existing conditions and degeneration disputes, and it too is usually answerable with the right evidence.
How Stephen Young Lawyers can help
Manual handling claims are common, but they are not simple, particularly where the injury built up over time or where the employer blames the worker. Establishing that the system of work was unsafe, connecting it to your injury, and answering the arguments an employer will raise about technique or pre existing conditions, is exactly the work an experienced lawyer does.
An experienced personal injury lawyer secures your workers compensation entitlements, assesses whether your employer’s failure to provide safe manual handling supports a work injury damages claim, gathers the evidence of the unsafe system while it still exists, and builds the case for both your injury and your true economic loss.
Because a serious manual handling injury can affect your entitlements beyond a single claim, we can also advise on related matters. Alongside your workers compensation and work injury damages claims, an injury that permanently affects your ability to work may support a Total and Permanent Disability claim through your superannuation. As an Accredited Specialist personal injury firm based in Sydney CBD, with a multilingual team and a No Win No Fee approach for eligible matters, we can review your situation and tell you where you stand.
No lawyer can promise you a particular outcome, and every claim turns on its own evidence. What can be said is that a manual handling injury, whether from one lift or years of them, can support a claim where the work was not made safe, and that being blamed for your own technique is rarely the end of the story.
Speak with an experienced work injury lawyer today
If you have been seriously injured lifting or through manual handling at work in New South Wales, whether in a single incident or over time, it is worth having your situation assessed early, before the evidence fades.
Contact Stephen Young Lawyers today for a free, no obligation consultation. Call us or get in touch through our website to speak with an experienced personal injury lawyer about your injury and your options.