Workplace Christmas parties can cause lots of legal issues. In Collins v Signature Blend Pty Ltd t/as Alira [2015] NSWWCCPD 22 there was an issue about when the employer’s liability for workplace injuries ceased (i.e. when did the party end).
The basic facts were that:
- Mr Collins, was the manager, sole director and employee of Signature Blend Pty Ltd t/as Alira, a restaurant in Sydney;
- On 19 December 2011, he and other members of staff attended a Christmas lunch at a restaurant called the Grasshopper at Temperance (oxymoron?) Lane in Sydney. Lunch started at around midday and there was no issue that Mr Collins was in the course of employment while he was at lunch. Signature Blend paid the cost of lunch;
- While at the restaurant, Mr Collins consumed alcohol and cocaine;
- After the lunch, which finished at about 4.00 pm, Mr Collins and some of the attendees at the lunch returned to his apartment at Darling Point where they consumed further alcohol and cocaine on his balcony;
- There was conflicting evidence about what happened next. However, Mr Collins suffered serious injuries when, at about 5.30 pm, he fell about 24 metres from the eighth floor balcony
- Did Mr Collins: (a) do an “irish jig type movement”, lose his grip and fall over the railing; or (b) did he jump the railing attempting to land on the cement ledge?
- It was put more colourfully by the Arbitrator: on a wet, stormy afternoon, with rain coming over a balcony, causing people to go inside, [Mr Collins] made a conscious decision to fling himself over a balcony more than 25 metres above ground, in a fluid single motion (having been to lunch), with a view to hanging on to a wet, slippery, thin metal railing and landing on a narrow ledge on the other side.
You might think the outcome of this case was obvious (it was), but the challenge to the initial arbitration decision was dealt with quite decisively:
“[Signature Blend] did not induce or encourage [Mr Collins] to engage in the behaviour that resulted in him falling from the balcony, including being intoxicated, under the influence of an illegal drug, and jumping on a wet and slippery balcony.”
It follows that, on any view of how Mr Collins came to fall over the railing, the respondent did not induce or encourage Mr Collins to engage in the activity or activities that brought about his injury and he was not in the course of his employment at the time he fell. For the same reasons, his injury did not arise out of his employment and his claim must fail.
So, there you go!
Creative commons acknowledgment for the photograph.