My boyfriend was injured at work and someone else claimed on his behalf and he didn't get anything. Please help us!

The long answer

An injury at work must be reported to the Compensation Commissioner by the employer within seven days of the accident, or within 14 days of discovering a disease caused by work conditions. Did the employer in fact report the accident within seven days? 

Did the Compensation Commissioner refuse the claim? Or is it possible that the person who claimed on his behalf somehow stole the compensation that your boyfriend should have got?

As you probably know, the Compensation Fund gives compensation to workers who get hurt at work or get sick from diseases contracted at work. This Fund works under the Compensation for Occupational Injuries and Diseases Act of 1993 (COIDA). A Compensation Commissioner runs the Fund, and, based on the evidence, decides to compensate or not.  

The Commissioner will then open a claim, which will stay open for a maximum of two years, depending on the seriousness of the injury. 

COIDA says that a person can apply for the reopening of the case after a maximum of two years by filling in a form from the Compensation Commission, which must answer the following questions:

• What is the relation between your current condition and that of the original injury?

• What treatment does the doctor think would help?

• Would this treatment reduce your permanent disability?

They say that reopening a claim can take six months or longer.

If your boyfriend wanted to make a legal claim against the employer, he would have had to notify the municipality that he was going to make a legal claim within six months of the injury. A legal claim would then have to be made within three years of the injury. 

As your boyfriend’s injury was in 2011, it is probably too late to make a claim now. But it may still be worth getting legal advice about it. A lawyer could assess his situation, examine any documents from the claim made on his behalf, and see if it was at all possible to apply for condonation: that means applying for permission to pursue a claim after the deadline of three years has passed. This may be possible if there were valid reasons for the long delay. 

Your boyfriend and/or the lawyer would then need to fill in a request form from the Compensation Commission to ask the Commissioner to re-open his case, as well as a detailed explanation of his current medical condition together with updated doctor’s reports which explain how his present condition connects to the original injury at the municipality, and recommendations from the doctor. All this would have to be sent to the Compensation Commissioner.

He could ask Legal Aid for legal assistance. Legal Aid is a means-tested organisation which must help people who can’t afford a lawyer. These are their contact details:

• Legal Aid

Email: communications2@legal-aid.co.za

Tel: 0800 110 110 (Monday to Friday, 7am to 7pm) 

Please Call Me: 079 835 7179 

Wishing you the best,
Athalie