Truck driver was assaulted while making deliveries for Linfox in 2010.
A former Linfox tanker driver who was physically assaulted while on the job has been given the approval to pursue a compensation claim against the company.
The Federal Court of Australia granted Kym O’Loughlin’s appeal against the Administrative Appeals Tribunal’s (AAT) ruling that denied him compensation in 2014.
O’Loughlin was delivering fuel to a Mobil service station in Melbourne in 2010 when he intervened in a dispute between a man and woman. The man threw objects at the woman’s car and punched the vehicle’s windscreen and window before O’Loughlin stepped in and told him to stop.
The man then punched O’Loughlin in the face repeatedly and kicked him in the knee, injuring him.
Linfox initially accepted the driver’s compensation claim for the injuries suffered but then revoked it.
O’Loughlin sought a review from the AAT, but the tribunal ruled that Linfox did not need to compensate him because it was not part of the driver’s job to help the woman.
But Federal Court justice Mordecai Bromberg says the AAT erred because it did not address whether O’Loughlin’s injuries occurred during a break from work. O’Loughlin had argued his injuries did not occur outside of work.
“Mr O’Loughlin should therefore succeed on his ground of appeal,” Bromberg says.
“I will also make an order that Linfox pay Mr O’Loughlin’s costs of the appeal.”