Former Air NZ worker wins compo fight after getting Covid on job

A former Air New Zealand flight attendant who fell ill with Covid-19 while helping people get home between New Zealand and China during lockdown has achieved a major milestone in his fight for compensation.

Daniel Lavender has been battling since 2021 to get compensation after contracting Covid, which ACC described as a workrelated gradual process injury.

Air NZ twice turned down his applications for cover, as an accredited provider of personal injury cover for its employees, believing Lavender was more likely to have picked up the particular variant of Covid while in quarantine in a hotel — which it said was not a place of work.

On review, ACC found it was more likely Lavender did pick up the infection while at work, in circumstances where the (ACC) Act provided cover, and rejected the airline company’s decision to deny compensation cover.

Air NZ appealed the decision, which has now been dismissed in the District Court.

Lavender, who worked for the airline for 20 years before he lost his job about the time he got Covid in late 2020, told NZME Air NZ had

“abused its privilege of being a selfaccredited ACC provider”.

The court’s decision to dismiss the appeal, in which ACC was the second respondent, paved the way for Lavender to get the compensation he had sought all along.

Lawyer Philip Schmidt, who acted for Lavender as a union lawyer, was critical of Air NZ’S adoption of a “highly technical argument” in seemingly wanting to avoid its responsibilities. Air NZ has been approached for comment.