Bucasia’s Cassidy Anne Bond files million dollar claim against Curragh mine

A former apprentice fitter and turner whose hand was severely injured just months after she started with a Central Queensland mine is fighting for a million-dollar payout.

Bucasia woman Cassidy Anne Bond filed a damages claim against Curragh Queensland Mining Pty Ltd after her hand was severely crushed four months into her apprenticeship as a fitter and turner.

A young Bucasia woman whose hand was severely crushed within months of starting an apprenticeship at a Central Queensland mine is fighting for a $1.2m payout over lost wages.

However, her former employer wants a legal agreement set aside claiming alleged “fraudulent misrepresentation”.

Cassidy Anne Bond was 17 years old when she secured a fitter and turner apprenticeship with Curragh Queensland Mining Pty Ltd.

Barely four months into her new job her right hand was severely crushed when a lifting frame fell on it on August 14, 2017, a recent court judgment revealed.

Ms Bond, now 23, was unable to return to work after the injury.

On February 19, 2021 Curragh “admitted liability for the accident” after Ms Bond had filed a damages claim in August 2020 through the Workers’ Compensation and Rehabilitation Act.

Ms Bond then took her fight to the Supreme Court in June 2021 when her claim, which totals $1,663,431.93, was still not resolved.

Justice Graeme Crow detailed in the recent judgment how the claim was compromised to $1.2m at mediation, and Ms Bond signed a “release and discharge and mediation agreement”.

On September 5, 2022 Workcover Queensland filed an application for the compromise to be set aside “as a result of fraudulent misrepresentation”.

“Curragh submits that individually or in combination, the five matters point to the inference that the plaintiff has engaged in self-employment or earned income from business activities which the plaintiff failed to disclose in her Notice of Claim, its Statement of Loss and Damage, Statement of Claim, and schedule of damages,” Justice Crow said.

“Ms Bond alleges that none of the five matters referred to involve her working as an employee or being self-employed or earning any income.

The judgment states Ms Bond said the matters related to either personal expenditure or other items associated with a romantic relationship that had since ended somewhat acrimoniously after she refused to return the engagement ring.

Counsel for Ms Bond argued Justice Crow should infer it was her former fiance “who made an anonymous fraud report submission to WorkCover Queensland” on April 1, 2022.

“In my view, it is unnecessary to draw that inference,” Justice Crow said.

His Honour added it was known someone “made an anonymous fraud report to WorkCover Queensland” on that date that was not communicated to the solicitors for Curragh until June 3.

“The nature of the anonymous fraud information was that it alleged that Ms Bond ran her own business and worked overseas in the United States of America and China since the incident. Ms Bond denies that she has done so.”

This included buying items from Totally Workwear, overseas travel and the transfer of $120,000 between March 2019 and November 2021 from a shared bank account with her former fiance to her own bank account, which Curragh alleges “related to some type of work being undertaken by Ms Bond”.

Justice Crow accepted Ms Bond’s claim the majority of Totally Workwear items were for her former fiance, whom she had accompanied overseas on his work trips.

“The provision of some $140,000 in a period of two years and seven months from a male to his partner may, to some, seem so excessive it may raise an inference that the payment is not out of natural love and affection but rather a payment made in some other context,” Justice Crow said.

“Senior counsel from either side were reluctant to make submissions upon the issue.

“All that is known is that in the period of two years and seven months, (he) provided Ms Bond, his then partner and fiancee, with a little over $140,000.”

Justice Crow determined “as a fact, Ms Bond was not engaged in business activities” and dismissed Curragh’s application.