Accident Compensation Act 2001

Cover - Key terms relating to cover

28: Work-related personal injury

You could also call this:

"Getting hurt at work or while doing job-related tasks"

A work-related personal injury is an injury you get while you're doing something for your job. This can happen in a few different ways:

You might get hurt while you're at your workplace, even if your workplace moves around or you have to go through different places for your job.

If you get injured during a meal break or rest time at work, that's also considered work-related.

Sometimes, you might get hurt while travelling to or from work. This counts as work-related if your employer provides the transport to take employees to work, and if your employer or another employee is driving.

If you need to travel to get treatment for a work injury, and you take the most direct route, any injury during that trip is also work-related.

Work-related injuries can include heart or brain problems if they're caused by unusual or very hard physical work.

Injuries that happen slowly over time because of your job, or diseases you get from work, are also considered work-related.

Mental injuries from work are included too, in certain situations.

If you get hurt while being treated for a work injury, that new injury is also work-related.

It doesn't matter if you were breaking rules, working without instructions, or even if you were skylarking when you got hurt. It's still a work-related injury.

Even if you're hurt by something like a storm or earthquake while at work, it's still considered work-related.

There are some special rules for injuries that are both work-related and caused by motor vehicles.

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This page was last updated on 8 April 2025

View the original legislation for this page at https://legislation.govt.nz/act/public/1986/0120/latest/link.aspx?id=DLM100918.

Topics:

Work and jobs > Worker rightsWork and jobs > Workplace safetyHealth and wellbeing > Healthcare services

27: Mental injury, or

"Mental health problems that doctors think are serious"

29: Personal injury that is both work-related and motor vehicle injury, or

"When you get hurt at work and in a car: deciding what type of injury it is"

Part 2Cover
Key terms relating to cover

28Work-related personal injury

A work-related personal injury is a personal injury that a person suffers—
while he or she is at any place for the purposes of his or her employment, including, for example, a place that itself moves or a place to or through which the claimant moves; or
while he or she is having a break from work for a meal or rest or refreshment at his or her place of employment; or
while he or she is travelling to or from his or her place of employment at the start or finish of his or her day's work, if he or she is an employee and if the transport—
1. is provided by the employer; and
2. is provided for the purpose of transporting employees; and
3. is driven by the employer or, at the direction of the employer, by another employee of the employer or of a related or associated employer; or
while he or she is travelling, by the most direct practicable route, between his or her place of employment and another place for the purposes of getting treatment for a work-related personal injury, if the treatment—
1. is necessary for the injury; and
2. is treatment of a type that the claimant is entitled to under Part 1 of Schedule 1.

In subsection (1)(d), most direct practicable route does not include those parts of a route that deviate unreasonably from, or interrupt, a journey for purposes unrelated to the employment or the treatment.
Work-related personal injury includes a cardiovascular or cerebrovascular episode suffered by a person, if the episode is caused by physical effort or physical strain, in performing his or her employment, that is abnormal in application or excessive in intensity for the person.
Work-related personal injury includes personal injury caused by a work-related gradual process, disease, or infection.
Work-related personal injury includes work-related mental injury that is suffered in the circumstances described in section 21B.
Work-related personal injury includes personal injury suffered by a person resulting from treatment for a work-related personal injury as defined in subsections (1), (3), or (4), whether or not the injury is a treatment injury as defined in section 32.
Work-related personal injury does not include personal injury suffered by a person when all the following conditions exist:
the personal injury is suffered in any of the circumstances described in subsection (1); and
the personal injury is suffered in the circumstances described in section 21; and
the person elects to have the personal injury regarded as a non-work injury, in which case that personal injury is a non-work injury.

It is irrelevant to the decision whether the person suffered a work-related personal injury that, when the event causing the injury occurred, he or she—
may have been acting in contravention of any legislation applicable to the employment, or in contravention of any instructions, or in the absence of instructions; or
may have been working under an illegal contract; or
may have been indulging in, or may have been the victim of, misconduct, skylarking, or negligence; or
may have been the victim of a force of nature.

This section is subject to section 29 (personal injuries that are both work-related and motor vehicle injuries).

Notes

Section 28(4A): inserted, on 1 October 2008, by section 9 of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Act 2008 (2008 No 46).
Section 28(5): amended, on 1 July 2005, by section 11 of the Injury Prevention, Rehabilitation, and Compensation Amendment Act (No 2) 2005 (2005 No 45).
Section 28(7)(a): amended, on 28 October 2021, by section 3 of the Secondary Legislation Act 2021 (2021 No 7).