A federal public servant has lost a legal bid to force taxpayers to pay more than $100,000 for university degree to help her recover from a workplace injury.
The IP Australia employee thought the $35,000-a-year degree at La Trobe University would be a better return-to-work option than doing a job that was "beneath her", the Administrative Appeals Tribunal was told.
But federal workplace insurer Comcare feared the university plan would leave taxpayers on the hook for years of workers' compensation benefits, running to tens of thousands of dollars a year, as well as the $98,000 tuition fees, HECS payments, text books and materials.
Now, after losing her legal action, the IP Australia worker will have to settle for a $10,000 medical rehabilitation course aimed at getting her back to work.
The AAT was told the government employee had struggled for more than two-and-half years with wrist and elbow problems brought on by her repetitive computer work in the intellectual property agency's patent section and an aggravation of pre-existing bipolar disorder before she finally went home in July 2015 and has not been back to work since.
IP Australia and Comcare have tried various strategies to get the 52-year-old back to work, including hiring private sector rehab experts, drafting return to work plans and reports, capacity assessments and suggesting rehab programs.
But the employer and its insurer encountered what the tribunal described as a "resistant mindset" from the worker, who had a "view that the program should be devised in the way she preferred it."
Soon after she stopped working, the public servant asked for her rehab program to be changed to include a three-year full time postgraduate uni course, a Juris Doctor at La Trobe University with all fees, HECS payments text books and materials to be paid for by IP Australia.
When her bosses said no, the employee appealed to Comcare and when the insurer knocked her back she took her case to the Administrative Appeals Tribunal.
The public servant argued that IP Australia was unable to get her back into her old job and could not offer another role at her level of seniority so the uni degree was the appropriate way for her to be helped to get a new job with a new employer.
The tribunal considered evidence from five medical professionals, including the public servant's treating doctor, with the weight of the evidence suggesting she was capable of engaging in some for of return-to-work program with her employer.
Jennifer Henderson, a private sector rehab specialist hired to help the public servant back to work, also gave evidence of her interactions with the injured worker.
In her statement, Ms Henderson stated the employee did not want to engage in a work trial because it "would involve taking on a job of lesser status".
"I believe she may have said that she didn't want to do work that was 'beneath' her," the statement read.
"She didn't want to be left in the mail room pushing a trolley," Ms Henderson told the tribunal.
"Undertaking further study would enable her to continue her career".
But the three-member tribunal panel did not agree, finding that a rehab program which included treatment, occupational therapy and job seeking assistance was preferable to spending more than $100,000 on a uni degree.
"The Tribunal considers the cost of a program comprising a Juris Doctor degree to be significant and the cost of the rehabilitation program...is reasonable," the tribunal members wrote in their decision
