If you have been injured at work and made a workers compensation claim, you will ultimately learn that your weekly benefits are not going to be paid forever. Eventually, the workers compensation insurer (usually Workcover Queensland) will close out your claim by sending you to an independent medical examination (or for psychiatric injuries – to the Medical Assessment Tribunal) for the purpose of a permanent impairment assessment.
After the examination, you will be issued a notice of assessment. If your impairment score is assessed at greater than 0%, the notice of assessment will include a lump sum offer of compensation.
The real question is what a common law claim might be worth instead – and in most cases it’s far more. This page shows real Queensland settlement results and the factors that decide the size of a common law claim payout.
In most cases, if you accept the lump sum offer your matter will be closed and you will never be able to make a further common law claim for damages. So, it is important to understand what you may be missing out on before you accept.
Our solicitors will tell you for free whether you should take the offer or pursue damages.
Note: If your injury is assessed as 0%, you still have the option to dispute this and make a common law claim.
How much are common law claims worth in Queensland?
Published statistics from WorkSafe Queensland put the average common law claim payout at roughly $185,000.
An average, though, hides enormous variation – the right figure for your claim turns on your injury, your age, your occupation and your future earning capacity, not on a statewide mean. The results below show why: workers assessed with a low degree of permanent impairment (DPI), who received small statutory offers or none at all, have recovered substantial common law settlements.
Real settlement results
These are actual settlements achieved for Roche Legal clients who were originally assessed with injuries causing less than 5% DPI – that is, workers WorkCover valued at a small lump sum, or nothing at all:
|
Injury & degree of permanent impairment (DPI) |
WorkCover lump sum offer |
Common law settlement negotiated by Roche Legal |
|---|---|---|
|
0% DPI – back injury (lumbar spondylosis) |
Nil |
over $125,000 |
|
2% DPI – knee injury (meniscal tear) |
$6,604.80 |
over $200,000 |
|
4% DPI – shoulder injury (dislocation) |
$13,913.60 |
over $200,000 |
The pattern is the point: a 0% impairment assessment with no lump sum offer still became a settlement of over $125,000 without having to incur costs of a trial. Offers of a few thousand dollars became negotiated settlements of more than $200,000.
The WorkCover lump sum offer is rarely the measure of what a claim is actually worth.
Results depend on the individual circumstances of each claim and are not a guarantee of any particular outcome. You can browse more outcomes in our Queensland quantum database where common law claims have run all the way to trial.
What decides the size of your payout?
A common law claim compensates the real, long-term cost of an injury, so the amount recovered depends on factors a statutory lump sum ignores entirely:
- Future earning capacity – often the largest component. A modest impairment can mean a very large claim if it pushes you out of a physical trade or limits the work you can do for the rest of your career.
- Your age and occupation – a younger worker, or one in physically demanding work, generally faces a longer and larger economic loss.
- Ongoing treatment and care – future surgery, therapy, medication and assistance you’ll need are all claimable.
- Severity and permanence of the injury, including pain and suffering.
- The strength of the negligence case – how clearly your employer breached its duty of care and how directly that breach caused the injury.
Because the WorkCover assessment is often a poor guide to any of this, Roche Legal will arrange a further independent medical examination for a comprehensive re-assessment, so your symptoms and future work capacity are properly understood before anything is settled.
Some workers assume their own carelessness caused the injury and take the lump sum rather than pursue a larger common law claim. That assumption is frequently wrong, and it’s an expensive one to get wrong – it costs nothing to have us check.
Making a common law claim
Making a common law claim is not a straightforward process and we strongly believe that you should never attempt to represent yourself. There are certain elements you must prove to make a successful common law claim. The main element is that you’re able to establish that your injury was caused by the negligence of another party or a failure of your employer’s duty of care generally.
If you’re considering a common law claim for a workplace injury in Queensland, take a free claim check with one of our lawyers to get a sense of what you may be owed. Roche Legal are expert workplace injury lawyers and act on a No Win No Fee basis.
This commentary is published by Roche Legal for general information purposes only and should not be relied on as specific advice. The content relates to Queensland law only and is subject to change over time. You should seek legal advice for any question, or for any specific situation or proposal, before making any decision.