Parking-area accident: NSW workers compensation guide

Parking-area accident can occur through pedestrian struck by a vehicle in the parking area and slip, trip or fall on a surface, kerb, stair or ramp. The incident history should identify the task, equipment, location and sequence of events rather than relying on the job title alone.

People commonly exposed include workers arriving, leaving or moving vehicles for work and workers crossing a depot, hospital, shopping-centre or client car park. Employment records should identify each person's task, employer and position in the work area when the incident occurred.

Medical records after a parking-area accident may identify knee, ankle, shoulder, wrist, head and fracture injury and spinal or crush injury after vehicle contact. Each diagnosis should be linked to the event or exposure and to the worker's actual functional change.

For a parking-area accident, the first evidence to preserve includes time, location, roster and purpose of entering the parking area and ownership, control, parking allocation and workplace-boundary information. It is most useful when dates, people, equipment, duties and later medical histories tell a consistent account.

• CCTV preservation request, photographs, lighting and surface records.
• Vehicle, police, witness and medical details.

After a parking-area accident, an insurer may dispute the worker had not started or had already finished work and the area is said not to be part of the workplace. The written decision should be answered with evidence directed to those stated reasons.

Medical records should state whether the mechanism was vehicle impact or a fall. Rehabilitation may need to address walking, stairs, driving and safe access. If treatment is disputed after a parking-area accident, the request should explain the accepted diagnosis, expected functional benefit and reasonable alternatives.

Work capacity after a parking-area accident may turn on parking and site access can be part of a realistic suitable-duties plan and remote parking or long walking routes may conflict with medical restrictions. Proposed duties must be compared with the real task demands and the worker's ability to sustain them for the proposed hours.

WPI is assessed from stable, accepted medical impairment under the applicable NSW method; travel, collision, surgery or imaging does not create an automatic percentage. Each diagnosed body system must be assessed using its own clinical findings, and any pre-existing impairment issue must be addressed separately. Any WPI assessment after a parking-area accident occurs after stabilisation under the NSW method for the accepted body system; the accident or surgery alone does not determine a percentage.

A NSW road crash may also require a separate CTP claim or advice, depending on the vehicle, road and circumstances. Another business controlling a client site, vehicle, venue or premises may raise a separate recovery issue that needs individual advice. These issues are separate from workers compensation and depend on the particular facts.

For a parking-area accident, assistance may involve identify whether the facts concern work-duty travel, a section 10 journey, a section 11 recess or another course-of-employment question and preserve route, employer, vehicle, event and medical records before app or camera data is overwritten. The purpose is to identify the disputed decision and the evidence needed for the next step, not to promise an outcome.