Qantas Flight Catering v Joncevski

The matter of Qantas Flight Catering v Joncevski involved an employee of the airline who had been awarded workers compensation payments but later faced their discontinuance. The case was heard in the Federal Circuit Court of Australia. The primary issue before the court was whether the employee had the onus of proving their entitlement to the weekly compensation payments in light of their unlawful discontinuance by the employer.

The court needed to determine whether the worker, upon the employer's unlawful discontinuance of weekly payments, was required to establish their entitlement to those payments to secure their reinstatement. The central legal question was whether the worker bore the burden of proving their entitlement to weekly payments in such circumstances. The court considered the relevant statutory provisions and case law to address this issue.

The court held that the worker did not bear the onus of proving their entitlement to the weekly payments once the employer had unlawfully discontinued them. The court reasoned that the statutory scheme provided a rebuttable presumption of entitlement to compensation, which shifted the onus onto the employer to demonstrate that the worker's injury did not meet the criteria for compensation. The court found that this presumption applied equally to the situation where payments had been unlawfully discontinued. Consequently, the court ordered the employer to reinstate the worker's weekly payments and compensate the worker for the period during which the payments were unlawfully withheld.