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Can front line emergency workers sue for trauma compo for the horrors they see?

By Trent Johnson - posted Thursday, 21 February 2019


Justice Flanagan said a person who, by their negligence, caused an accident must contemplate the fact that police are human and not entirely immune to psychiatric injury, even where they use training and detachment techniques. He ordered the CTP insurer to pay Mr Caffrey $1,092,947.

The decision, while not a precedent setter, is important because it clarifies the law for rescue workers attending traumatic incidents as part of their job. The legal claim was rightly against the driver's CTP insurer.

"A member of the public … is not entitled to drive in any manner he wishes, without regard to police officers who may attend at an accident he may cause, simply because police officers 'undertake for the benefit of the public' to attend at such scenes,'' Justice Flanagan said.

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A police officer legally obliged to respond to emergencies, in fact, placed himself or herself in a situation of elevated risk in respect of psychiatric harm,'' the judge said.

A key point in the decision was the role of "rescuer" played by the attending police officer. He kept the driver's airway clear, held him and due to the driver's injuries instructed paramedics not to move the trapped driver until fire service personnel could safely cut him from the wreckage.

Then he supported and comforted the driver's distraught parents at the scene as their son died. By all accounts Mr Caffrey treated the dying driver like his own son. So by legal definition he was most certainly a rescuer and thus entitled to claim against the driver's CTP insurer for the trauma he suffered.

This summary is by necessity a precis of a complex judgment of a complex case but the crux of it reaffirms the legal rights of emergency rescuers traumatised by accidents caused by the driver's negligence.

Such claims are not possible if the driver is not at fault. So what we have is not a new decision but a clear and correct re-stating of existing law. Naturally the claim was hard fought by the CTP insurer but the court has righty found that in effect, adopting the role of a rescuer at a horrific crash scene caused by a driver's blatant negligence is not just something police and others have to accept as part of the job without recourse to common law compensation for an associated injury.

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About the Author

Trent Johnson is an accredited specialist in personal injury law and a director with Brisbane firm Bennett & Philp Lawyers.

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