Recently, Ray McClenahan, partner and head of our legal team at Lidcombe, completed a compensation claim for a client who had been greatly affected by a number of injuries received whilst working for several employers. Whilst working as a stonemason, our client suffered injuries to both his wrists and his back resulting in continual pain in the wrists and weakness in the hands. After a period of rehabilitation, our client continued at work trying to re-adjust his method of work in order to accommodate his ongoing pain and restrictions. Unfortunately whilst at work and attempting to lift a heavy machine, he suffered a further injury to his back. Claims for lump sums were made and our client received compensation for these injuries. Eventually the work as a stonemason became too much and our client was forced to look for lighter work. Fortunately, he found work as a cleaner earning substantially less money than as stonemason. A series of cleaning jobs followed and for some time the insurance company responsible for compensating him for his injuries paid him some make-up pay. But eventually this stopped with the insurance company claiming that our client’s inability to do his work as a stonemason was as a result of other medical conditions unrelated to work and therefore they denied liability to pay make-up pay. Fortunately for our client, Ray McClenahan was able to gather medical evidence establishing that the work injuries were the prime reason that our client couldn’t work as a stonemason. Ray sought the wage records of our client from all employers and then calculated the difference between what he would have earned as a stonemason and what he was able to earn in the various light duty jobs that he had worked since receiving his injuries. Eventually, Ray was able to secure weekly payments for our client of make-up pay going back to 2003. Commenting on the case, Ray said:- “My client had done his best over the years to stay at work and rehabilitate himself. Unfortunately the insurance company at the first opportunity tried to terminate payments to my client for make-up pay. Fortunately, gathering together a complete wage record history of my client and also securing specialist medical support for him ensured that eventually the insurance company had to relent and agree to make ongoing weekly payments to my client”.
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