Mr B. injured his back lifting boxes at work. ACC accepted his injury was work related. He was entitled to be paid by his employer compensation for earnings lost in his first week of incapacity. Lost earnings are the difference between earnings in the seven days before the incapacity and in the first week of the incapacity.
Mr B. earned $885.62 working for the employer in the seven days prior to his injury and a further $200.00 from a weekend job (another employer altogether). Under the Act his lost earnings were all earnings whether or not they were payable by the employer.
He had earned therefore $1,085.62 and was entitled to 80% of that amount i.e. $868.49. The employer paid him $265.69, he was owed $602.80.
The employer did not show up at the hearing but had claimed that Mr B. was not incapacitated by the injury. If the employer wanted to argue this there are ways of contesting this with ACC but having failed to do so the employer could not simply refuse to pay.
As we find ourselves in the middle of the club rugby season (go Blues!) of interest is what occurs with non related work injuries and in particular how long an employer is required to keep jobs open. There is no easy answer to this. If your employee breaks a leg playing rugby and is unable to return to work the main obligation upon an employer is to be reasonable. The main obligation upon an employee is to keep the employer fully informed. There is no obligation upon an employer to keep a job open indefinitely. On the other hand, however, one would expect an employer to keep a job open for as long as it was practicable to do so.
If an employee is away this is a situation where someone can be employed on a fixed term basis to fill that gap. In other words this is one situation where someone can be employed for X weeks or months and their employment will finish at the end of that time. Similar to when you get someone to fill in for maternity leave. The main thing to remember is if you have a fixed term agreement it has to be in writing.
