By Stacks / The Law firm
Many eyebrows were raised when a court recently ruled that a
woman injured during a sexual tryst in her hotel room while on a
work trip was entitled to workers' compensation.
You'd be tempted ask whether sex was now legally a regular
part of a business trip? Can you sue someone for bad sex? Maybe you
can get compensation if you don't get sex on a business
trip?
Sadly it doesn't open those possibilities. The case spun on
the legal definition of an injury in the course of employment.
The woman, a commonwealth public servant in her 30s, had been
sent in 2007 to a regional NSW town on business by her employer.
While staying at a motel she contacted a male friend who lived
locally. He came to her motel room and, in the excitement of their
sexual tryst, a glass light fitting came away from the wall above
the bed, hitting her on the face. Her nose and lips were badly cut
and she was taken to hospital.
