Forklift driver fails to get compo after back agony

A TASNETWORKS employee who says he doubled-up on the floor in pain after stepping off his forklift won’t be paid compensation after losing a Supreme Court battle.

In May last year, Kim Bradshaw, 58, said he took two steps off his forklift, dropping to the floor with the worst back and hip pain he had ever experienced. Unable to return to work for some time, Mr Bradshaw applied for workers’ compensation.

TasNetworks, arguing Mr Bradshaw’s degenerative back condition was pre-existing, challenged the worker’s claim, sending him to a neurosurgeon for assessment.

Mr Bradshaw had been using a battery reach fork to perform about 90 per cent of his daily work, which involved repeated head movements, twisting motions and “considerable bending and lifting of weights”, for eight years prior to the 2018 incident.

The neurosurgeon found Mr Bradshaw suffered from an aggravation of lumbar spondylosis, a degenerative condition affecting spinal discs, and had a long history of back pain, sciatica, and had previously had a cervical fusion. The matter was fought in the Workers Rehabilitation and Compensation Tribunal, with the commissioner siding with the electricity company, finding it wasn’t liable to pay compensation as a specific injury didn’t occur in May last year that aggravated the worker’s pre-existing condition. Mr Bradshaw appealed to the Supreme Court, which found the commissioner had erred in her reasoning but reached the same conclusion that compensation wasn’t payable.

Supreme Court Justice Michael Brett ruled the symptoms “were due to pre-existing lumbar spondylosis”.