Government to compensate official for sex mishap

An Australian court has ruled that a bureaucrat who was injured while having sex on a business trip is eligible for worker’s compensation benefits.

The woman was hospitalised after getting injured in 2007 during sex with a male friend while staying in a motel. During the sex, a glass light fitting was torn from its mount above the bed and landed on her face, injuring her nose and mouth. She later suffered depression and was unable to continue working for the government.

Her claim for worker’s compensation for her physical and psychological injuries was initially approved by government insurer and then rejected after further investigation.

An administrative tribunal agreed with the government insurer that her injuries were not suffered in the course of her employment, saying the government had not induced or encouraged the woman’s sexual conduct. The tribunal also found the sex was “not an ordinary incident of an overnight stay” such as showering, sleeping and eating.

That ruling was overturned in the Federal Court in 2012, when Judge John Nicholas rejected the tribunal’s findings that the sex had to be condoned by the government if she were to qualify for compensation.

“If the applicant had been injured while playing a game of cards in her motel room, she would be entitled to compensation even though it could not be said that her employer induced her to engage in such activity,” the judge wrote in his judgment in favour of the woman receiving compensation.

The latest full bench decision upheld the judge’s decision, agreeing that the government’s views on the woman having sex in her motel room were irrelevant.

“No approval, express or implied, of the respondent’s conduct was required,” they said.

It is not yet clear how much compensation the woman will receive. She was in her 30s at the time of the accident.