A couple of recent decided cases might be of interest to the childcare sector.
In the first case before the Queensland District Court, in Nkamba v Queensland Childcare Service, a childcare worker sued the childcare service. In this case the plaintiff childcare worker was setting up an activity yard in the course of her employment, the
plaintiff entered a shed and stood on a Lego/construction block and rolled her ankle causing injury. Some of the issues in the case were whether the block was
present prior to the plaintiff entering, whether there was adequate lighting where the incident occurred, whether the defendant had in place a safe system of work and whether the plaintiff’s injury was caused by the defendant’s negligence. The Court found that the service was negligent and awarded the plaintiff $197,013.98 in damages.
The other case, Bersee v State of Victoria, was heard by the Supreme Court of Victoria. In this case it was actually a teacher suing the Department of Education and Training. However, similar principles would most likely apply in a case involving a childcare educator (in Victoria at least). In this case the applicant teacher sued the Victorian Government for psychiatric injury (the case before the Supreme Court was on appeal from the initial Country Court case). The basis of the applicant’s claim was that he was subjected to unreasonable and excessive workloads due to an increase in class sizes; having to teach the enlarged cohort in a room that did not adequately or safely accommodate more than 22 students; and being required to teach alone, when a part-time teacher who assisted him retired and was not replaced. The Court found that as a a general standard the workload was not unreasonable or posed a risk to the health of teachers. Moreover, the Court found that the Department took a number of actions to support the applicant and lessen the workload. The Court therefore dismissed the appeal.
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