10 Indicators Your Workplace Injury happened on the Job

Determining whether your injury arose out of and in the course of employment is the starting point for whether your WorkSafeBC claim or appeal will succeed. Section 5(1) of the Workers Compensation Act (WCA) states:

Where, in an industry within the scope of this Part, personal injury or death arising out of and in the course of the employment is caused to a worker, compensation as provided by this Part must be paid by the Board out of the accident fund.

The question becomes: what qualifies an injury arising out of and in the course of employment?

WorkSafeBC, in its Rehabilitation Services and Claims Manual, Volume II (RSCM) in chapter 3 sets out 10 criteria that provides guidelines in determining whether an injury arose out of and in the course of employment. These 10 criteria are whether the injury occurred:

(a) on the premises of the employer;

(b) in the process of doing something for the benefit of the employer;

(c) in the course of action taken in response to instructions from the employer;

(d) in the course of using equipment or materials supplied by the employer;

(e) in the course of receiving payment or other consideration from the employer;

(f) when the risk to which the employee was exposed was the same as the risk to which the employee is exposed in the normal course of production;

(g) during a time period for which the employee was being paid;

(h) and was caused by some activity of the employer or of a fellow employee;

(i) while the worker was performing activities that were part of the regular job duties; and

(j) while the worker was being supervised by the employer.

You don’t need to satisfy all of these 10 criteria and this is not a complete list (according to the RSCM. Therefore, if you satisfy some or all of these criteria, then on the face of it, your injury arose out of and in the course of your employment.

Of course, the difficulty arises when your injury occurs over time (i.e. back pain or carpal tunnel syndrome) or you have a pre-existing injury of a similar nature to your current workplace injury.