This veteran trucker spent $400,000 fighting a WorkCover case. He now says an employee ‘set him up’
In the office of his booming transport business north of Brisbane, Rodney Johnston lost his cool. Now he says he has proof the altercation was not what it appeared – in the form of a simple Google search.
In the office of the booming transport business he has built from scratch north of Brisbane, Rodney Johnston lost his cool.
Fuming at an employee he believed was stirring trouble, the trucking industry veteran, now 71, shouted and swore and threw a water bottle.
Partially captured on camera on the employee’s phone, it looked like a classic case of bad boss behaviour, and that’s how insurer WorkCover Queensland saw it.
Leaving the office that day and never returning, the employee lodged a police complaint and was paid workers’ compensation for more than two years for psychiatric injury and panic attacks arising from the altercation.
Now, after spending almost $400,000 fighting the case, Mr Johnston says he has evidence of what he suspected all along – that the situation was not what it appeared.
“I became frustrated that day. It’s not my normal style. I wish I had been calmer but, when I look back on it, I was being set up,” he told The Australian.
The proof, Mr Johnston says, is in Google searches discovered on the work computer of the employee, his former office manager Peta Durston.
“Framing boss for work compensation,” reads one search. “Starting argument with boss while recording,” reads another.
According to a forensic audit commissioned by Mr Johnston, the searches were done in the week leading up to his confrontation with Ms Durston. She denied conducting the searches, but as a result of the discovery a Workers’ Compensation Regulator appeals officer concluded she acted in a “deliberate and pre-planned way” and agreed with Mr Johnston that he was “set up”.
Yet WorkCover and the state regulator will do nothing more about it, Mr Johnston said.
“They were hand-delivered proof yet they decided not to pursue the matter or to reclaim the payments. We just want WorkCover to do the job that they are paid to do. We don’t want them turning a blind eye to this behaviour,” he said.
Business success
Mr Johnston and his wife Gianna have overseen the growth of their business, RW & G Johnston Pty Ltd, from a single truck in 1981 to a fleet of 150 prime movers and trailers today, moving about 800 loads a day to civil construction sites.
Trading as Bulk Granite Haulage and West Moreton Transport, the business has a workforce of up to 250 staff, requiring it to pay WorkCover almost $2.3m in three years, from 2021 to 2023, for compulsory work-related injury insurance.
Mr Johnston says he suspects costs for businesses are being driven up by people abusing the safety net, and wants action when there are doubts about claims.
In his case, the business is unaware of any investigation into potential fraud or misleading evidence offences, or any attempt to recoup an estimated $200,000 WorkCover paid to Ms Durston.
“We have spent a significant amount on investigating this claim ourselves but we have done that because it’s time the system was exposed. We refused to let it go on a matter of principle,” Mr Johnston said.
“People need to be found out and held accountable. It’s a terrible sign for the system when WorkCover won’t take action.”
‘Catch Me If You Can’
The case comes after The Australian revealed in January that WorkCover Queensland awarded compensation to a convicted fraudster, Jody Thomson, after she was apparently able to conceal her extensive criminal history.
Once known as the Catch Me If You Can conwoman, Ms Thomson claimed she suffered physical and psychological injuries in a minor car accident on her way to work.
Criminal history checks would have uncovered Ms Thomson’s convictions, but those assessing her for WorkCover appear unaware she was repeatedly jailed for crimes of deception.
Mr Johnston’s concerns point to systemic problems at the insurer in responding to complaints about possible abuse of the compensation system.
The incident
On the afternoon of Tuesday, March 9, 2021, Ms Durston left work and went to Caboolture police station to report her boss’s “threatening manner and behaviour” earlier that day, police logs state.
Showing police a video of the incident, she said she did not wish to make a complaint but wanted a document trail “in case things escalate”. Two days later she returned to the station with a copy of the footage. By the end of the month, WorkCover had accepted her claim for psychiatric injury and she started receiving compensation. Two months later, she lodged an assault complaint against Mr Johnston with police over the same incident, alleging he flew into a rage in a one-on-one outdoor meeting after she said she had been keeping notes related to her treatment in the workplace. He’d raised his fists, she said.
“Rodney stated, ‘You don’t ever want to threaten me, if you do you will see what happens’,” she told police.
She only started recording later that day, when they were back inside the office, she said.
“During the time the phone was recording in the office Rodney threw a water bottle at me causing a dint in the wall. While I was walking out on the veranda Rodney brushed past me really close. Rodney stood at the gate rattling it and would not let me leave,” she said.
Mr Johnston, who was visited and questioned by police but was not charged, told a different story.
Seeking a review of the WorkCover claim’s acceptance, he told the regulator that Ms Durston arranged to meet him privately outside, asked about a redundancy and complained his wife disrespected her.
They went into the office together to raise the issues openly but, once inside, Ms Durston denied making the comments about Ms Johnston, he said. “That made me angry. My voice was definitely raised,” he said.
He threw the empty plastic water bottle in the rubbish and it went “nowhere near” Ms Durston, he said.
Initial verdict
The regulator initially sided with Ms Durston, confirming in September 2021 it was satisfied she sustained “an injury of a psychiatric nature best referred to as an acute stress reaction together with panic attacks”, and that it was a result of unreasonable management.
WorkCover relied partly on video recordings it believed substantiated most or all of the events alleged, the regulator added.
RW & G Johnston immediately appealed, alleging Ms Durston manufactured the incident and was feigning injury.
The regulator’s position completely changed after an expert at professional services firm Vincents, hired by RW & G Johnston, provided a report in March 2023 documenting the suspicious internet search history.
Other Google searches were conducted on “listening devices” and “listening devices qld” in the week prior to the incident.
In one instance, the computer was also used to visit a Lexology legal research page titled: “Can I Record a Meeting with My Boss? Do I have to tell Her that I am Recording Her.”
The searches were found under Ms Durston’s username, at times coinciding with her work hours.
Cheryl-Lea Godfrey, a principal appeals officer at the regulator, part of Queensland’s Office of Industrial Relations, subsequently wrote to WorkCover on May 31, 2023. She recommended the business’s appeal be allowed and that Ms Durston’s compensation application be rejected.
“It is my opinion, without a doubt, that Ms Durston approached Mr Johnston on 9 March, 2021, in a deliberate and pre-planned way (not spur of the moment) with an appreciation of the risk which was involved in doing so. Her Google searches one week prior to the interaction support the conclusion that I have reached,” Ms Godfrey stated.
“I was also satisfied that due to her searches on Google, she had set her employer up with the view of making a workers’ compensation claim.”
Ranch job
A private investigator with Brooksight Investigations, working for RW & G Johnston, separately received horse riding lessons at Quarter Mile Ranch at Ningi from Ms Durston while she was totally incapacitated for work and being paid workers’ compensation.
Ms Durston is alleged to have remarked at the ranch that she worked there as needed several days a week and on weekends.
Denying she had a premeditated plan to fabricate the WorkCover claim, she told the regulator she kept her password close to her computer so anyone could have conducted the searches.
Ms Godfrey from the regulator stated: “To me, this explanation makes no sense, as no one was aware that the events on 9 March, 2021, were going to occur (one week after the searches were conducted on her computer).”
Ms Durston also said her medical history was truthful and that she was only volunteering at the horse ranch. She was backed by the ranch owner, who said she was there for equine therapy sessions.
A separate expert hired on behalf of Ms Durston said he was advised she often arrived at work to find her computer logged in, and found her account may have been “compromised”. But Vincents said there was no evidence of the computer’s clock being wound back to falsify searches. Ms Durston’s expert also found Bing searches of “set boss up for work compensation” and “recording boss for work compensation” the day before the altercation.
Case closed
WorkCover notified Ms Durston on June 1, 2023, that her compensation claim would cease, and she resigned from RW & G Johnston two weeks later. Responding to questions from The Australian, Ms Durston said her compensation claim “was accepted by WorkCover and that decision was upheld at the WorkCover compensation regulator”.
She added: “Mr Johnston lodged an appeal with the QIRC (Queensland Industrial Relations Commission) of the regulator’s decision, and I did not defend that appeal. There have been no findings as outlined in your email and to suggest otherwise is false and defamatory. If you choose to publish this false information, I will seek legal advice or an action in defamation. I do reserve my rights in this regard.”
RW & G Johnston is pursuing the regulator and Ms Durston for costs associated with the appeal.
WorkCover Queensland says it can’t comment on individual compensation claims.
“Employers contribute significant funds to WorkCover and expect that it will properly assess claims brought by workers,” Mr Johnston said. “Like other businesses, we pay those funds in good faith and expect WorkCover to act fairly for all.”
Industrial Relations Minister Jarrod Bleijie, without speaking about individual cases, said the government “has a zero tolerance approach to fraudulent workers compensation claims”.
“I’ve asked my department to consider any legislation changes that are needed to strengthen laws that crack down on any fraud claims,” Mr Bleijie said.