Where a workplace injury results from an employer's failure to provide adequate staffing, the counterfactual hypothesis for causation is satisfied where the employee called for help before acting alone and additional staff would probably have responded and assisted. An employee who makes a clinical judgment to act immediately in a life-threatening emergency rather than follow employer safety protocols may not be contributorily negligent, particularly where the employer's own witness concedes the employee had a duty to assist the patient. The common law causation test (not the Wrongs Act 1958 (Vic) statutory test) applies to workplace injury claims in Victoria.
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