2015-05-11
Labor Bureau denies workers compensation request due to an indirect route home
A worker’s application for medical fees ($2000 NTD) from his injury due to a car accident on his route home was denied.
The Labor Insurance Bureau indicated in its denial that the labor should have taken the two shorter and faster routes suggested by “Google map;” the detour doubled the transportation time, so the labor’s request for compensation was unreasonable.
The worker, working for a bank on Taipei’s An-Her Road, claimed in his application that he had actually been taking the same route from his residency in New Taipei city’s Hsin-Tien city to the workplace for nearly five years, in the hope to avoid busier and riskier traffics on the two routes regarded as reasonable routes to and from his workplace.
The labor’s administrative petition on the denial was still rejected by the petition and appeals committee of the agency. The Labor Insurance Bureau explained in its rebuttal that Google map routes were merely references to the agency. In reviewing the case, the agency sent out its staff to conduct field investigation. Reports show that among the three disputed routes, the two suggested by Google map are only three kilometers and would take a motorcyclist only 13 and 15 minutes respectively; the indirect route chosen by the labor is 6 kilometers and would take 28 minutes. However, the denial did not address the issue if the investigation was conducted during peak or non-peak time of the traffic. According to the worker, during peak time, the route he chose took him only 17 minutes during peak time.
Labor group leaders criticized such denials very unreasonable, as the review guidelines of worker’s compensation do not specify the routes to and from work should be the “quickest” or “shortest,” any route back and from a workplace and the worker’s residency should be deemed reasonable route.
Statistics of the Labor Bureau show worker’s compensation application for car accidents during trips from and to workplace reached around 18,000 cases last year. The agency expressed to the media that as long as the accident happened “on route” or “in the same direction” to or from the workplace between the residency, regardless of its purposes being “buying breakfast” or “picking up family members,” the agency has been lenient in reviewing application; however, the dispute arises from the worker’s insist on his indirect route.
Under Taiwan’s Administrative Litigation Act, to be compensated, now the worker will have to appeal the decision by the committee to the Administrative Court.
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