Adelaide media identity-turned-truck driver Scott McBain has been denied worker’s compensation after a judge ruled on-going back pain wasn’t related to a workplace trucking injury.
McBain claimed he was still in serious pain months after an unloading incident in January 2016, and was chasing a lump sum payout.
But unbeknown to McBain his former boss, Integrated Waste Services, had secretly filmed him driving his car the 500km from Adelaide to Parachilna and back – and performing other exercises – reports The Advertiser.
According to the judgment of Judge Margaret Kelly, the videos showed McBain loading and unloading his car, bending over, kneeling and making multiple stops without showing any visible signs of pain.
It also captured him stopping at his daughter’s home and a friend’s apartment on the return trip to deliver meat.
Judge Kelly said McBain’s claim that he experienced a “significant increase” in back pain on the car trip was “simply not borne out in the surveillance film”.
“I am unable to reconcile that degree of complaint with Mr McBain attending at his daughter’s home to deliver meat and then to drive to an apartment complex in Stepney to deliver meat to a friend, with someone who is in constant pain after a long trip,” Judge Kelly said.
“I do not see anything urgent about the delivery of sausages that could not wait another day or be abandoned altogether in the face of that degree of pain.”
She upheld ReturntoWork SA’s decision to deny the compensation claim.
McBain was a Adelaide radio announcer on stations including 5AA until 2016 and has been best known in recent years for voiceovers and television advertisements.
He was in the process of unloading a truck at an IWS landfill site in Dublin in January 2016 when he fell backwards, injuring his shoulder, arm, back, hip and neck.
He was granted a compensation claim for the injuries, before returning to work on light duties in March that year.
However, McBain claimed he suffered ongoing lower back pain as a result of the workplace accident and applied for a lump sum compensation payment in December 2017.
McBain told the employment tribunal he suffered pain during a drive to Parachilna at Easter in March 2016, including feeling like his legs would buckle when he stepped out of the car, and took multiple breaks that he otherwise would not have.