After an injury, help can arrive without a bill. A partner takes over washing, a friend drives you to appointments and a relative assists with personal tasks. It can be difficult to describe that support later, particularly when it overlaps with the work everyone already did at home.
A useful care assessment explains the need, the actual assistance and the legal category separately. This guide shows how paid and unpaid help differ, why the pre-injury position matters and how to keep records that support a fair assessment.
Start with the need, not an hourly total
The first question is what the injury changed. Identify the task, the difficulty caused by the injury and the assistance required. A total such as “family helped for twenty hours” says little about those things by itself.
Some needs may be temporary, while others depend on the expected recovery or a longer-term restriction. Treatment and functional evidence can help explain the difference between assistance needed because of the injury and help supplied for another reason.
Actual help and legal entitlement are also different questions. A person may receive extensive kindness without every hour becoming a recoverable loss. Conversely, the absence of a professional invoice does not automatically dispose of an unpaid-care issue.
Which kind of assistance is being considered?
| Arrangement | Useful evidence | Question for assessment |
|---|---|---|
| Paid professional or domestic help | Service details, invoices, payment records and the reason it was needed. | Was the expense reasonable and connected with the compensable injury? |
| Unpaid family or friend assistance | Tasks, dates, provider, time and the pre-injury position. | Do the applicable unpaid-service conditions permit an award? |
| Help funded by an insurer or support program | Approvals, services actually supplied, funding and any personal contribution. | How does that support interact with the damages claim? |
| Replacement help for someone the injured person used to care for | The earlier care arrangement, recipient’s circumstances and replacement services. | Is a separate loss-of-capacity-to-provide-care claim involved? |
Keep the arrangements separate even when one person performs several roles. A relative might provide some unpaid help, arrange an agency service and assist another household member. Those activities should not be combined into an unexplained weekly figure.
The conditions for unpaid services under section 59
Section 59 hoursat least 6 per week Section 59 periodat least 6 months
Civil Liability Act section 59 restricts damages for gratuitous services provided to an injured person. Gratuitous services are unpaid assistance. The section requires the services to be necessary and the need to arise solely from the injury for which damages are awarded.
It also requires the services to be provided, or to be provided in the future, for at least six hours per week and at least six months. Both requirements matter. A short period of intensive help does not satisfy the period requirement merely because its hours were high.
Those conditions are not the whole assessment. The section also addresses earlier services, benefits obtained by the helper and periods when institutional care means the help was not or will not be needed. A diary assists the factual assessment; it does not replace the statutory tests.
The reference to future services is important. It is not a direction to wait six months before seeking advice, giving a claim notice or investigating the likely future need.
Why the pre-injury household arrangement matters
Section 59 excludes damages for gratuitous services of the same kind already being provided for the injured person before the breach of duty. Give your lawyer an accurate account of those arrangements, including help connected with an earlier condition.
Record who normally cooked, cleaned, shopped, drove and provided personal assistance. Then explain what changed. Do not simply describe all household work after the incident as new injury-related care.
This is more than a bookkeeping exercise. Whether earlier and later services are of the same kind, why the assistance was needed and how the restriction applies can be significant legal questions. Increased time or a new diary does not, by itself, resolve them.
Keep a fair record even where the answer appears uncertain. Omitting the earlier arrangement makes the assessment less reliable, while recording it allows the issue to be considered openly.
The helper’s lost wages are not automatically the care value
A family member may take leave, cancel work or rearrange their own responsibilities to help. Record what happened, but do not assume their lost earnings can simply be added to the injured person’s damages.
In Grincelis v House [2000] HCA 42, paragraph 9, the High Court explained the common-law basis of gratuitous-care damages by reference to the injured person’s need, generally valued by market cost rather than the provider’s foregone income. Current Queensland statutory restrictions must also be satisfied.
Valuation therefore requires more than choosing a helper’s usual wage or an online agency rate. The tasks, skill required, reasonable duration and applicable legal rules need to be considered. This guide does not supply an hourly rate or predict a care award.
Paid help needs its own explanation and records
An invoice proves that a service was charged for, but does not necessarily establish why it was required or that its full cost is recoverable. Keep the service description, date, provider and payment record together with the relevant explanation of need.
Separate an ordinary household expense from an additional injury-related service. Also identify work that benefits several people. A cleaner’s whole invoice should not be silently treated as personal care for the injured person.
If a family member is genuinely being paid, explain the actual arrangement and any liability to pay. Do not invent an invoice, retrospective employment relationship or payment merely to change the legal description of earlier unpaid help.
The existing injury payout guide places care alongside the other heads of damage. A care assessment still needs to establish its own facts and applicable conditions.
Record tasks and time without counting the same help twice
A useful entry identifies the date, task, helper, approximate start and finish or duration, and the difficulty that made assistance necessary. Add whether the service was paid, unpaid or funded elsewhere, with a reference to any supporting record.
Distinguish time spent doing a task from time spent nearby. A visit that includes conversation, shopping for several people and some direct help should be described in those parts rather than counted wholly as personal assistance.
Where two helpers are involved, record each person’s role and the reason. Two people may genuinely be needed for some assistance, but their presence alone does not establish two recoverable sets of hours. Similarly, do not count the same helper’s minute twice under different task headings.
Mark estimates as estimates. If a time was reconstructed later, state when you wrote it and what you relied on. Records should describe actual events, not be adjusted to reach a weekly threshold.
Show changes during recovery
Care may increase after discharge, reduce as function improves or change after further treatment. Record the change and its source rather than copying the first week’s hours indefinitely.
Hospital or institutional stays also matter. Section 59 requires account to be taken of periods when the relevant help was not or is not likely to be required because care is provided in an institution. Keep any distinct assistance during those periods identified for assessment.
Illustration only: before an incident, a partner already prepared most evening meals. Afterwards, the partner also assists with dressing, while a paid cleaner attends fortnightly. A useful record separates the earlier meal arrangement, the new personal assistance and the cleaner’s work and invoice. It does not decide that any category meets the statutory tests or that the full invoice is recoverable. This is a hypothetical, not a reported case.
Future assistance is a separate evidentiary question
Past help can inform an assessment without proving that the same services will be needed permanently. The expected recovery, remaining restrictions and any relevant professional recommendations need to be considered.
A future-care recommendation should explain the proposed task, frequency, duration and reason. Ask which assumptions are based on medical or functional evidence and which remain uncertain. A family’s willingness to help does not answer all of those questions.
Keep proposed care, care already received and services actually approved by an insurer in separate parts of the record. This makes it easier to identify a gap or overlap without treating every proposal as an established cost.
Help for your family is not always help provided to you
An injury may stop a person caring for a child, partner or other dependant. That can raise a different question from services supplied to the injured person.
Sections 59A and 59B address a separate loss of capacity to provide gratuitous domestic services, with their own conditions and overlap restrictions. Do not assume that all replacement childcare or support for another person belongs in a section 59 care total.
Tell your lawyer who received the service, what the earlier arrangement was and how it changed. The identity and circumstances of the recipient can affect the legal category, not just the arithmetic.
Check the claim regime before applying these thresholds
The Civil Liability Act contains scope and exclusion provisions. Its unpaid-care rules are not a universal formula for every Queensland injury payment.
In particular, section 5 excludes specified workers’ compensation injuries from the relevant civil-liability framework, subject to its qualifications. That issue can arise even if compensation was not actually claimed, and can affect a claim against a third party as well as an employer. Do not automatically import the six-hour/six-month rule into a work-injury matter.
Statutory support, insurer-funded rehabilitation and other payment arrangements also need to be identified. Explain what has already been supplied or paid so that the interaction with damages can be assessed without assuming the same service is payable twice.
Obtaining care advice or completing a diary does not protect a claim deadline. Raise the relevant claim, evidence and timetable together rather than waiting to see whether an unpaid-care threshold will eventually be met.
What to do when help is needed after an injury
- Step 1 Obtain appropriate help with immediate care and identify the injury-related difficulty.
- Step 2 Record the household and assistance arrangements that existed before the incident.
- Step 3 Separate paid, unpaid, externally funded and other-recipient assistance.
- Step 4 Record actual tasks, providers and time, with estimates and later reconstructions clearly labelled.
- Step 5 Keep invoices, funding decisions and relevant care recommendations, and note changes during recovery.
- Step 6 Obtain advice about the applicable scheme, statutory conditions and valuation without waiting for a threshold period to pass.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I need to pay my family before assistance can be considered?
Unpaid assistance is a recognised category, but it has specific legal conditions. Explain the genuine arrangement rather than creating a payment or invoice to reclassify it. Paid assistance has its own questions about need and reasonable cost.
Does every injury claim use the six-hour and six-month rule?
No. This guide describes section 59 where the Civil Liability Act applies. Workers’ compensation, other statutory schemes and different legal routes require separate consideration. Both the scheme and the particular care category matter.
What if my partner already helped before the incident?
Record that help accurately. Section 59 contains a restriction concerning services of the same kind already provided before the breach of duty. The earlier and later arrangements need legal analysis rather than an assumption that all later hours are new.
Can my relative’s lost wages simply be added to my claim?
Not automatically. Care damages concern the injured person’s need and the applicable valuation rules. Keep the facts about time away from work, but do not equate a helper’s wage loss with a recoverable care amount.
Can I record two helpers for the same period?
Record each person’s actual role, duration and why both were involved. Whether both services were needed and recoverable is a separate assessment. Presence, shared household work and direct assistance should remain distinguishable.
What if we did not keep a diary from the beginning?
Make an honest retrospective account using available messages, calendars, appointments and receipts. Label when it was prepared and what remains uncertain. Do not present reconstructed hours as contemporaneous or invent precision that the records cannot support.
Sources and further reading
- Civil Liability Act 2003 (Qld), particularly sections 4, 5, 59, 59A and 59B.
- Grincelis v House [2000] HCA 42, particularly paragraph 9 on the common-law basis of gratuitous-care damages. The judgment does not replace current Queensland statutory conditions.
- The Carter Capner Law injury payout guide, linked above, explains the broader components of a damages assessment.
Help explaining assistance and care needs
You can contact Carter Capner Law with an account of the injury, earlier care arrangements and help now received. Bring the records available; you do not need to invent a complete diary before seeking advice.
General Queensland information. This guide does not prescribe a care plan, determine whether a statutory threshold is met or calculate an individual care award.