Employees' Compensation for Work Injuries in Hong Kong

The question many people ask

The question many people ask is: "my boss says it wasn't his fault, so is there anything for me?" That question points the wrong way. The Employees' Compensation Ordinance ("ECO") never asks whether the employer was at fault.

The ECO (Cap. 282) is Hong Kong's principal statute governing compensation for workplace injuries and fatalities. Its core principle is no-fault liability — an employee injured or killed by an accident at work is entitled to compensation from the employer, regardless of whether the employer was at fault. So "was the boss at fault" is a question the statutory route never puts. It only matters on the other route — a common-law negligence claim. The two operate independently, and in appropriate cases an employee may pursue both.

The thirty-second version

• What has to be established? — three things: an employment relationship, an accident, and that the injury was one "arising out of and in the course of the employment" (s. 5(1)) — the statute's own words. There is no negligence box.
• What can be recovered? — four statutory heads (death, permanent total incapacity, permanent partial incapacity, temporary incapacity), plus medical expenses and prostheses, each with its own multiplier, ceiling and floor.
• How is it computed? — monthly earnings × a months multiplier fixed by age × the assessed percentage loss of earning capacity. Earnings are capped for computation at the Sixth Schedule amount of $38,670 a month, and the compensation carries statutory floors.
• When must you act? — notify the employer as soon as practicable; the employer must report to the Commissioner; and the statutory claim runs on a 24-month line (ss. 14(1), 16A(1A)), with a "reasonable excuse" exit in s. 14(4).
• The other route runs on a different clock. The limitation period for a common-law negligence action is not in Cap. 282 at all. It is in the Limitation Ordinance (Cap. 347): 3 years from the accrual of the cause of action or the date of knowledge, whichever is later (s. 27(4)), with an extension for disability (s. 22(2)) and a general judicial override (s. 30).
• What if the employer has no insurance? — cover is a compulsory obligation backed by a criminal offence, and in defined circumstances the employee may proceed directly against the insurer (s. 44) — though the insurer answers only up to the amount the policy actually covers (s. 42).

Scope of this article: it describes, in general terms, the scope of the ECO, the compensation items available, the two-tier assessment regime, the time limits and procedure, and the relationship with common-law negligence claims. It cannot tell any individual reader what their claim comes to — that figure turns on age, earnings, assessed percentage and certified sick-leave days, which are for a solicitor and the Assessment Boards. For what courts actually awarded in decided cases, see real cases: work-injury compensation .

What this actually is

The moment an employee is injured by an accident arising out of and in the course of employment, the employer is under a statutory liability to pay — with nothing to prove about the employer's conduct.

That liability comes from section 5 of the Employees' Compensation Ordinance (Cap. 282), headed "Employer’s liability for compensation for death or incapacity resulting from accident", subsection (1):

In plain terms, only three things have to hold: an employment relationship, an accident, and that the injury was "arising out of and in the course of the employment".

That point can be counted. In Cap. 282 in the version in force on 14 May 2026, "negligence" occurs twice in the English text, both times in s. 26(1) — the section that preserves the common-law action. In the Chinese text 疏忽 occurs three times: twice in s. 26(1) and once in an unrelated provision about the liability of officers of a body corporate. In the liability section itself, s. 5, it does not occur at all. "Was the boss at fault" is a s. 26 question, not a s. 5 question.

Who counts as an "employee"? — the first gate

Section 2, headed "Meaning of employee", subsection (1) defines an employee — note how the definition opens, "subject to section 4 and the proviso to this subsection" — as

The ECO therefore generally applies to all persons employed under a contract of service or apprenticeship — full-time or part-time, fixed-term or casual, local employees or Hong Kong employees working outside Hong Kong, domestic helpers, agricultural workers, Hong Kong ship crew, and others. Having no written contract does not put you out: the section expressly covers a contract that is "expressed or implied, is oral or in writing".

Nor does an illegal contract automatically put you out — s. 2(2). Where, in proceedings for the recovery of compensation, it appears to the Court that the contract of service or apprenticeship under which the injured person was working "was illegal", the Court "may, if having regard to all the circumstances of the case it thinks proper so to do, deal with the matter as if the injured person had at the time aforesaid been a person working under a valid contract of service or apprenticeship". It is a discretion, not an entitlement — but its existence means "your job was not lawful" is not a self-executing answer.

But the proviso to the same subsection excepts three categories from the definition — the lines most often crossed in practice:

Note that (b) is a double condition — the employment must be both casual and outside the employer's trade or business before the exception bites; being merely casual, daily-paid or short-term does not forfeit cover. The paragraph also expressly pulls a part-time domestic helper back inside.

As for the resident family member, s. 2(4) provides a way back: where at the time of the accident "there is in force in relation to that person a policy of insurance which indemnifies the employer against liability in respect of such injury", the Ordinance applies to that person notwithstanding proviso (d), "as if he were an employee within the meaning of the subsection". The policy does not have to be big enough. Paragraph (b) continues: "whether or not the indemnity is for an amount which is less than the full amount of the liability in respect of which the employer would, under section 40(1), be required to be insured if such person were an employee within the meaning of subsection (1)" — so a policy written below the Fourth Schedule minimum still triggers the way back.

Section 4, which subsection (1) points to, is itself an exclusion. Section 4, headed "Application to certain employees", first applies the Ordinance to employees of the Crown "in the same way and to the same extent as if the employer were a private person", excepting the categories in paragraphs (a) and (b), and then adds a proviso:

So a government employee who, because the injury was received on duty, receives a pension or gratuity that would not otherwise have been payable is outside Cap. 282 for that case. The exclusion is not in the s. 2(1) proviso, but the opening words of s. 2(1) pull it in.

Masters and seafarers run on a different clock. Section 29, headed "Application to persons employed on ships", applies the Ordinance to masters and seafarers who are members of the crew of a Hong Kong ship "subject to the following modifications", two of which bear directly on time. Paragraph (a): notice of accident and the claim may be given to the master of the ship "as if he were the employer", and "where the accident happened and the incapacity commenced on board the ship it shall not be necessary for any seafarer to give notice of the accident". Paragraph (b): "in the case of the death of the master or seafarer, the application for compensation shall be made within 2 years after the occurrence of the death or, where the ship has been or is deemed to have been lost with all hands, within 2 years of the date on which the ship was, or is deemed to have been, so lost". That two years is not the general 24-month line described below, and it runs from a different event.

The phrase that decides everything — and the deeming rules behind it

This phrase is the gateway to the whole scheme. In practice the fights are over the two halves: that the accident was work-related ("out of" the employment — a back strain while lifting heavy materials, being caught by a machine, falling at the workplace) and that it occurred during performance of the work ("in the course of" the employment — including reasonable breaks and facilities within the workplace). A purely private-time activity (for example, going out for lunch) is generally not covered, with some exceptions.

This site's reading: those "exceptions" are, in the main, the deeming rules that s. 5(4) writes down for itself. They are not judicial generosity — they are the statute widening its own gateway:

• A presumption (s. 5(4)(a)) — "an accident arising in the course of an employee’s employment shall be deemed, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, also to have arisen out of that employment". Prove that it happened at work, and the "out of" half is presumed until someone rebuts it with evidence.
• Breaking a rule does not automatically forfeit cover (s. 5(4)(b)) — even where the employee was acting in contravention of a statutory regulation or the employer's orders, or "was acting without instructions from his employer", the accident is still deemed to arise out of and in the course of employment "if such act was done by the employee for the purposes of and in connection with his employer’s trade or business".
• First aid, ambulance and rescue work (s. 5(4)(c)) — this paragraph has three sub-paragraphs, and the middle one is the one usually missed. Sub-paragraph (i): being trained, with the employer's consent, in first aid, ambulance or rescue work, or engaged in a competition or exercise connected with it. Sub-paragraph (iii): "in, at or about his employer’s premises while the employee is engaged in any first aid, ambulance or rescue work". Sub-paragraph (ii) is the opposite case: "in, at or about any premises other than his employer’s while, with the consent of his employer, the employee is engaged in any first aid, ambulance or rescue work or in any competition or exercise in connection therewith" — so helping at someone else's site, with the employer's consent, is covered too. The paragraph closes with a proviso specific to rescue work: even where the employee acted in contravention of a regulation or of the employer's orders, or without instructions, the deeming holds "if when such act was done the employee reasonably acted in order to rescue, succour or protect any other person who had suffered, or who was reasonably believed to be in danger of, injury, or to avert or minimize serious damage to property of the employer".
• Riding in transport the employer arranged (s. 5(4)(d)) — where the employee is, "with the express or implied permission of his employer, travelling as a passenger by any means of transport to or from his place of work", the transport being operated by or on behalf of the employer or under arrangements made with the employer, and "other than as part of a public transport service". This paragraph does not cover an ordinary commute by bus or MTR.
• Driving transport the employer arranged (s. 5(4)(e)) — where the employee is "driving or operating any means of transport arranged or provided by or on behalf of his employer or by some other person pursuant to arrangements made with his employer between his place of residence and his place of work, travelling by a direct route" to work, or home after attending to those purposes.
• Commuting during a gale, rainstorm or extreme-conditions announcement (s. 5(4)(f)) — during such a warning or announcement, an accident while travelling between residence and workplace is deemed to arise out of and in the course of employment where the employee is going "to his place of work, by a direct route within a period of 4 hours before the time of commencement of his working hours for that day or to his place of residence, within a period of 4 hours after the time of cessation of his working hours for that day, as the case may be". The paragraph also has a catch-all: "in such other circumstances as the Court thinks reasonable". It defines "gale warning" as signals No. 8NW, 8SW, 8NE, 8SE, 9 or 10 being in force, "rainstorm warning" as the Red or Black signal being in force, and "extreme conditions announcement" as an announcement by the Chief Secretary for Administration arising from a super typhoon or other natural disaster of a substantial scale.
• Travelling on business (s. 5(4)(g)) — an accident while the employee is, with the employer's express or implied permission and for the purposes of the employment, "travelling by any means of transport for the purposes of and in connection with his employment between Hong Kong and any place outside Hong Kong or between any place outside Hong Kong and any other such place".

In other words, the same phrase "in the course of the employment" is wider on a typhoon day than on an ordinary one — because the statute says so.

Where compensation is not payable

Section 5(2) lists four situations, and all four are all-or-nothing:

• "any injury, other than an injury which results in partial incapacity of a permanent nature, which does not incapacitate the employee from earning full wages at work at which he was employed" (para. (a)) — so an injury that neither cuts your full wages nor leaves permanent partial incapacity attracts nothing;
• "any incapacity or death resulting from a deliberate self-injury" (para. (b));
• paragraph (c) is the least-discussed and the one an employer reaches for. It excepts "any incapacity or death resulting from personal injury if the employee has at any time represented to the employer that he was not suffering or had not previously suffered from that or a similar injury, knowing that the representation was false". Three elements: the representation may be made at any time (not only on entering the employment), it must be known to be false, and it must be about that or a similar injury. When a pre-existing condition surfaces, this is the provision that gets cited;
• "any injury, not resulting in death or serious and permanent incapacity, caused by an accident which is directly attributable to the employee’s addiction to drugs or his having been at the time of the accident under the influence of alcohol" (para. (d)) — note the opening words: where the injury does result in death or serious and permanent incapacity, this exclusion does not apply.

Section 5(3) adds that where the injury "is attributable to the serious and wilful misconduct of that employee", or the employee deliberately aggravated it, "any compensation claimed in respect of that injury shall be disallowed" — with the same kind of exit: "except that where the injury results in death or serious incapacity, the Court on consideration of all the circumstances may award the compensation provided by this Ordinance or such part thereof as it shall think fit."

Occupational diseases

Specified occupational diseases listed in Schedule 2 of the ECO (certain dust-related lung diseases, chemical-related skin conditions, repetitive strain injuries) are also covered. Section 32, headed "Compensation in the case of occupational disease", works by wiring the disease into the accident scheme: the employee or the family are entitled to compensation "as if such incapacity or death had been caused by an accident arising out of and in the course of employment in respect of which the provisions of section 5 apply", subject to modifications, the first of which is that "the incapacity or the death shall be treated as the happening of the accident".

Those words settle the whole timeline. Because the incapacity (or the death) is the accident, the two 24-month lines in ss. 14(1) and 16A(1A) below run from the date the incapacity began, or the date of death — not from the date of exposure years earlier.

The "prescribed period" is not a claim window. Section 32(6)(b) provides that "the prescribed period shall be the period specified in the fourth column of the Second Schedule in relation to the trade, industry or process specified in the third column of that Schedule", and s. 32(1) uses it to fix causation: the disease must be "due to the nature of any employment in which the employee was employed at any time within the prescribed period immediately preceding such incapacity or death". It is a look-back period of employment that decides which employer pays. It is not a deadline for filing anything.

Which employer pays — s. 32(1)(c) to (e). For anyone whose exposure spans several jobs, this is the whole question:

• (c) — the last employer. "subject to subsection (3), the compensation shall be recoverable from the employer who last employed the employee during the prescribed period immediately preceding the incapacity or death in the employment to the nature of which the disease was due".
• (d) — whose earnings the money is computed on. "the amount of the compensation shall be calculated with reference to the earnings of the employee under the employer from whom the compensation is recoverable pursuant to paragraph (c) or subsection (3)" — so the figure may not be what your most recent job paid.
• (e) — where notice goes. Notice of incapacity or death goes to that same employer, and the paragraph says in terms that it may be given "notwithstanding that the employee has voluntarily left such employer’s employment". Having walked out does not leave you with nobody to notify.

Section 32(2) requires the employee or the family, if asked, to furnish that employer with the names and addresses of the other employers in the prescribed period; if the information is not furnished or is insufficient, and that employer proves the disease was not contracted in his employment, he is not liable. Section 32(3) lets him join another employer to the proceedings. Section 32(4) provides that where the disease is "of such a nature as to be contracted by a gradual process", the other employers who employed the employee in that work during the prescribed period must contribute, in default of agreement as the Court determines. Section 32(5) preserves the employee's right to recover from those other employers.

Causation carries a statutory presumption — s. 34, the disease counterpart of the s. 5(4)(a) presumption for accidents:

Prove employment in the listed trade, industry or process within the listed period, and "was it the work that caused it" is presumed until someone rebuts it. The causal link does not have to be built from scratch.

There is also an all-or-nothing exclusion: s. 32(1)(b) — "if it is proved that the employee, at the time of entering into the employment, wilfully and with intent to deceive represented in writing that he had not previously suffered from the disease resulting in the incapacity or death, compensation shall not be payable". Note its three limits — on entering the employment, in writing, and wilfully and with intent to deceive. It is narrower than s. 5(2)(c) above.

Pneumoconiosis and mesothelioma are compensated under a separate ordinance, which this article does not quote.

Accidents outside Hong Kong

Where a Hong Kong employer's employee is injured while working outside Hong Kong (for example, assigned to the Mainland), coverage may still apply. Section 30B(2) is direct:

But s. 30B(3) attaches a set-off: "Compensation payable under this Ordinance to an employee referred to in subsections (2) and (5) shall be reduced by the amount of any foreign compensation paid to him in respect of the same injury."

And if the foreign payment arrives afterwards? Section 30B(4) deals with that directly: "Where foreign compensation is paid to an employee after compensation in respect of the same injury is paid under this Ordinance, the amount paid under this Ordinance, not exceeding the amount of the foreign compensation paid, shall be repaid to the employer by the employee and the amount is recoverable as a civil debt." Compensation received late abroad is not a windfall — it comes back off the ECO payment, and the employer can sue for it as a debt.

Two related points sit elsewhere. Section 40(1A) provides that the compulsory-insurance duty in s. 40(1) "does not require an employer to obtain insurance for any liability he may have in respect of damages awarded by a court outside Hong Kong to an employee referred to in section 30B" — so a foreign court's damages award is outside the statutory minimum cover. And medical treatment given outside Hong Kong for an accident that also happened outside Hong Kong runs on s. 10AA, not s. 10A(1A); see "Medical expenses" below.

What you can actually recover

The Ordinance sets four heads of compensation, plus medical expenses and prostheses. None of it is awarded at large: the arithmetic is written into the sections, and each head carries its own multiplier, ceiling or floor.

<table>

<caption>Employees' Compensation Ordinance (Cap. 282): basis of computation, ceilings and floors for each head. Every amount is taken from the Third and Sixth Schedules to that Ordinance, version in force 14 May 2026 (Sixth Schedule last amended by L.N. 43 of 2025; Third Schedule last amended by L.N. 209 of 2025).</caption>

<thead>

<tr><th>Head</th><th>Provision</th><th>Basis of computation</th><th>Ceiling / floor</th></tr>

</thead>

<tbody>

<tr>

<td>Death</td>

<td>s. 6(1)</td>

<td>Under 40 at the time of the accident: <strong>84</strong> months' earnings; 40 or over but under 56: <strong>60</strong> months; 56 or over: <strong>36</strong> months</td>

<td>Monthly earnings taken at no more than the Sixth Schedule amount for ss. 6(1)(a), (b), (c) — <strong>$38,670</strong> ("whichever is the less"); compensation in no case less than <strong>$514,510</strong> (s. 6(2))</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Funeral and medical attendance reimbursement</td>

<td>s. 6(5)</td>

<td>Reimbursed to whoever paid the expenses</td>

<td>Not exceeding in all <strong>$98,950</strong></td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Permanent total incapacity</td>

<td>s. 7(1)</td>

<td>Under 40: <strong>96</strong> months' earnings; 40 or over but under 56: <strong>72</strong> months; 56 or over: <strong>48</strong> months</td>

<td>Same <strong>$38,670</strong> monthly ceiling; compensation in no case less than <strong>$584,220</strong> (s. 7(2))</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Employee requiring attention</td>

<td>s. 8(1)</td>

<td>Where permanent incapacity is "of such a nature that the employee is unable to perform the essential actions of life, without the attention of another person", payable in addition</td>

<td>Up to <strong>$700,390</strong></td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Permanent partial incapacity</td>

<td>s. 9(1)</td>

<td>The permanent-total figure above × the percentage loss of earning capacity (as specified in the First Schedule, otherwise as assessed)</td>

<td>Multiple injuries from one accident are aggregated "but not so in any case as to exceed the amount which would have been payable if permanent total incapacity had resulted from the injuries" (s. 9(2))</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Temporary incapacity (the "4/5 salary")</td>

<td>s. 10(1)</td>

<td><strong>Four-fifths</strong> of the difference between pre-accident monthly earnings and what the employee earns or is capable of earning during the temporary incapacity, paid periodically</td>

<td>The Sixth Schedule does not cover s. 10; the entitlement runs for <strong>24 months from the date of the commencement of the temporary incapacity</strong>, with up to a further <strong>12 months</strong> as the Court may allow (s. 10(5))</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Medical expenses</td>

<td>s. 10A, Third Schedule</td>

<td><strong>$300</strong> per day as an in-patient; <strong>$500</strong> per day otherwise; <strong>$700</strong> for a day on which both are given</td>

<td>Expenses actually incurred or the daily-rate total, "whichever total amount is the less"</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Prosthesis or surgical appliance</td>

<td>ss. 36B, 36C, 36J</td>

<td>Cost of supplying and fitting; repair or renewal separately (s. 36I)</td>

<td><strong>$47,310</strong> in aggregate per employee per accident (s. 36C); repair or renewal <strong>$143,320</strong> (s. 36J)</td>

</tr>

<tr>

<td>Computing monthly earnings</td>

<td>ss. 11(1), 11(5)</td>

<td>Earnings for the month immediately preceding the accident, or computed over the previous 12 months (or the shorter period with the same employer), "whichever calculation is more favourable to the employee"</td>

<td>Floor of <strong>$5,710</strong>: earnings computed below that are "deemed to be" that amount (s. 11(5))</td>

</tr>

</tbody>

</table>

First, what "earnings" means — s. 3 defines it, and the line between in and out surprises people. The interpretation section defines "earnings" as "any wages paid in cash to the employee by the employer and any privilege or benefit which is capable of being estimated in money", including the value of food, fuel or quarters the accident deprives the employee of; and it includes "any overtime payments or other special remuneration for work done, whether by way of bonus, allowance or otherwise, if of constant character or for work habitually performed and including tips if the employment be of such a nature that the habitual giving and receiving thereof is open and notorious and is recognized by the employer". The definition then excludes five things in terms: it "shall not include remuneration for intermittent overtime, or casual payments of a non-recurrent nature, or the value of a travelling allowance, or the value of any travelling concession or a contribution paid by the employer of an employee towards any pension or provident fund, or a sum paid to an employee to cover any special expenses entailed on him by the nature of his employment". The dividing line is "constant character / habitually performed" against "intermittent / non-recurrent" — standing weekly overtime counts, one-off cover shifts do not; openly recognised tips count, a travelling allowance and the employer's MPF contribution do not.

The "computing monthly earnings" row is not fixed for the life of the claim. Beyond subsections (1) and (5), s. 11 carries two subsections written for long incapacity. Section 11(1A): where an employee suffers temporary incapacity after an accident and "such incapacity extends beyond 12 months after the date of the accident", the monthly earnings at the time of the accident are, in respect of the incapacity beyond that 12-month period, recomputed for the purposes of s. 6, 7, 9 or 10 — where the employer employs other persons of similar earning capacity in similar employment, by "the average rate of increase in respect of the earnings" of those persons; where he does not, by taking the s. 11(1) or (2) figure "adjusted in accordance with the rate of increase in the Consumer Price Index at the end of a 12-month period after the date of the accident". Section 11(1B) does the same again where the incapacity extends beyond 24 months, or beyond such further period as the Court may have allowed under s. 10(5). Section 11(1C) identifies the index as the Consumer Price Index (A). So in exactly the cases that run long enough to reach a permanent award, the earnings figure the multipliers are applied to is uprated rather than frozen. The worked examples below use the unadjusted s. 11(1) figure.

Section 11 carries five further subsections, written for young workers, apprentices and people holding two jobs. For those readers they move the base figure far more than the s. 11(5) floor does:

Section 11(7) carries two provisos: the concurrent contract's earnings count "only so far as the employee is incapacitated from performing the concurrent contract"; and the subsection does not apply at all where the employee was in full-time employment with the employer he was working for at the time — the proviso defining full time as "employment for not less than 40 hours during a minimum period of 5 days in any 1 week". Section 11(7A) requires the employee, at the employer's written request, to give enough written information about concurrent contracts for the employer to comply with s. 40, and s. 11(7B) disapplies s. 11(7) where he does not.

Getting the earnings figure out of the employer has its own 14-day provision. Section 11(8): "Within 14 days after the date of issue of a written request of the employee or of the Commissioner to the employer liable to pay compensation, that employer shall furnish in writing a list of the earnings which have been earned by that employee upon which the amount of the monthly earnings may be calculated for the purpose of this section." Section 11(9): an employer who without reasonable excuse contravenes it "commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 3". The first number in the whole computation is the one this subsection produces — and a written request is all it takes.

Where each of those figures actually comes from

This is worth itemising, because the money is the part of any work-injury guide that goes stale first.

Every amount above sits in a Schedule to Cap. 282 itself. None of them is set in some separate instrument. Three Schedules carry them:

The Sixth Schedule is a section-by-section table: first column the provision, second the amount, third the percentage. So every figure above points to one row — $38,670 against ss. 6(1)(a), (b), (c) and 7(1)(a), (b), (c); $514,510 against s. 6(2); $98,950 against s. 6(5); $584,220 against s. 7(2); $700,390 against ss. 8(1)(a), (b); $5,710 against s. 11(5); $47,310 against s. 36C; $143,320 against s. 36J; $830 with 5% against s. 16A(10)(a) and $1,670 with 10% against s. 16A(10)(b) (the same pair also appears against ss. 6C(8), 6D(3) and 6E(9)).

Why spell this out? Because these numbers move often. The mechanism is s. 48A, headed "Legislative Council may amend amounts of compensation etc.": "The Legislative Council may by resolution amend— … (fa) the First Schedule; … (g) the daily rates specified in the Third Schedule; (h) the minimum amount of insurance cover specified in the Fourth Schedule; … (i) the amounts and percentages specified in the Sixth Schedule." The amendment history printed under the Sixth Schedule in the version in force on 14 May 2026 records eight Legal Notices between 2010 and 2025 (L.N. 93 of 2010, 126 of 2012, 31 of 2015, 30 of 2017, 60 of 2019, 42 of 2021, 36 of 2023, 43 of 2025) — roughly every two years. So the first question to ask of any work-injury figure is which in-force version it is from. Every figure here is from the version in force on 14 May 2026.

1. Temporary incapacity

While the employee is unable to work because of the injury, the employer must make periodical payments under s. 10(1) at

Where the employee earns nothing during sick leave, that "difference" is the whole pre-accident monthly figure, and four-fifths of it is what is commonly known as "4/5 salary". It runs until the employee returns to work or is assessed as permanently incapacitated.

Six practical points, all of them express:

• The sick-leave certificate is the unit of computation. Section 10(2) provides that a period of absence certified as necessary by a registered medical practitioner, registered Chinese medicine practitioner, registered dentist, an Ordinary Assessment Board or a Special Assessment Board "shall be deemed to be a period of total temporary incapacity irrespective of the outcome of the injury".
• It must be paid on time. Section 10(3) ties payment to the days wages would have fallen due, and provides that "the interval between periodical payments shall not exceed 1 month". An employer who without reasonable excuse fails to pay within 7 days of the due date "commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 6" (s. 10(10)).
• It has an endpoint, and that endpoint has a start date. Section 10(5) in full: an employee "who has received periodical payments under this section for a period of 24 months from the date of the commencement of the temporary incapacity or for such further period being not more than 12 months as the Court may allow in any particular case shall no longer be entitled to periodical payments under this section but shall be deemed to have suffered permanent incapacity", and s. 7 or s. 9 applies instead. The clock runs from when the temporary incapacity commenced, not from a count of payments received. Where sick leave is broken by a return to work, those are different periods, and the section uses the first.
• It is not swallowed by the permanent award. Section 10(4) provides that "no periodical or lump sum payments paid or payable under this section shall be deducted from any amount of compensation payable under section 6, 7, 8 or 9".
• For incapacity of 3 days or less there is a separate recovery route. Section 10(11): where the temporary incapacity does not exceed 3 days and the employer does not pay within the 7 days in s. 10(10), the compensation "may be recovered by the employee from the employer— (a) as a civil debt in the Small Claims Tribunal established under the Small Claims Tribunal Ordinance (Cap. 338); or (b) where the amount claimed exceeds the jurisdiction of the Small Claims Tribunal, as a civil debt in the District Court". Section 10(12) adds that a District Court claim under limb (b) may be brought "either independently of or in conjunction with any other claim for compensation which is, under this Ordinance, to be brought in the District Court". It is the exact parallel of the medical-expenses route in s. 10A(7) below.
• Leaving Hong Kong to live abroad: the periodical payments can be redeemed as a lump sum. Section 10(8): "An employee in receipt of periodical payments under this section who intends to leave Hong Kong for the purpose of residing outside Hong Kong may apply to the Court for an order for the redemption of such periodical payments and the payment to him, subject to subsection (9), of a lump sum amount to be determined by the Court." Section 10(9) caps it: the lump sum together with the periodical payments already made "shall not exceed the lump sum which would be payable in respect of the same degree of incapacity under the provisions of section 7 or 9, as the case may be, if the incapacity were permanent". Note that this is an application to the Court, not a negotiation with the employer.

This site's reading (Sixth Schedule read against s. 10): the Sixth Schedule is expressed to apply to "ss. 6, 6C, 6D, 6E, 7, 8, 11, 16A, 36C, 36J & 48A" — s. 10 is not on that list. Death and permanent incapacity carry the months-times-$38,670 ceiling; sick-leave pay carries no equivalent ceiling, only the 24 (+12) month limit in s. 10(5). The s. 11(5) floor of $5,710, by contrast, is expressed to operate "for the purposes of this Ordinance", so it reaches sick-leave pay too.

2. Permanent incapacity

After assessment by an Employees' Compensation (Ordinary Assessment) Board or an Employees' Compensation (Special Assessment) Board, if the employee is found permanently and totally or permanently and partially incapacitated:

• Permanent total incapacity (s. 7) — a lump sum calculated on monthly earnings × an age-based multiplier (younger employees have higher multipliers, reflecting longer remaining working life). The calculation is subject to a cap on the monthly earnings used — the Sixth Schedule amount of $38,670 — and a statutory minimum: under s. 7(2) the compensation "shall in no case be less than" the Sixth Schedule amount for s. 7(2), namely $584,220. The Ordinance also defines when incapacity counts as permanent and total: under s. 7(3), where the percentage or aggregate percentage of loss of earning capacity amounts "to 100 per cent or more" (as specified in the First Schedule, or as assessed by an Ordinary Assessment Board, a Special Assessment Board or the Court), permanent total incapacity is deemed to result.
• Permanent partial incapacity (s. 9) — calculated on the assessed percentage loss of earning capacity applied to that same base. For example, 30% loss means 30% of the full amount. Injuries not in the First Schedule fall under s. 9(1)(b), assessed at the percentage "as is proportionate to the loss of earning capacity permanently caused by the injury in any employment which the employee was capable of undertaking at that time".

Section 9(1) actually has three limbs and two provisos. Limb (a) is a single injury the First Schedule specifies. Limb (aa) is rarely mentioned: "in the case of a combination of injuries specified in the First Schedule, the aggregate of the compensation which would have been payable in respect of the injuries" — several scheduled injuries are added together, subject to the s. 9(2) ceiling ("not so in any case as to exceed the amount which would have been payable if permanent total incapacity had resulted from the injuries"). Limb (b) is the unscheduled injury. The two provisos that follow limb (b) then shape the percentage: proviso (i) — for injury to a part of the body specified in the First Schedule "not amounting to the loss of that part", the percentage "shall not exceed the appropriate percentage specified in the First Schedule in respect of the loss of such part", so damage short of loss is capped at the figure for losing the whole; proviso (ii) — for an injury not specified in the Schedule, the loss "shall be assessed as a percentage having regard so far as possible to the scale of percentages specified in that Schedule and to the Note thereto", so off-schedule injuries are still measured against the Schedule's own yardstick.

This site's reading (ss. 7 and 9 read together): s. 9 is not a separate formula. It is the s. 7 formula times a percentage — so a change of age band moves the s. 9 figure even on identical earnings and an identical percentage.

An exit few people notice — s. 9(1A). Where the percentage arrived at under s. 9(1) "would be substantially less than the percentage of the loss of earning capacity permanently caused by the injury or injuries in the special circumstances of the employee", compensation is instead assessed at the percentage proportionate to that real loss. The subsection names two such circumstances: "(i) the nature of the injury or injuries in relation to the nature of his former usual employment; and (ii) his qualifications, previous training and experience". Such claims must be referred by an Ordinary Assessment Board to a Special Assessment Board (s. 16D(6)).

Section 9(4) adds that an assessing body "may but shall not be obliged to give weight to any actual earnings of the employee earned after the accident causing the injury" — finding work after the injury does not automatically pull the percentage down. But the subsection sets its own scope in its opening words: it applies where an Ordinary Assessment Board, a Special Assessment Board or the Court is assessing loss of earning capacity "for the purposes of subsection (3)(b)". Section 9(3)(b) is the case of an injury not specified in the First Schedule, assessed by a Board or the Court at less than 100 per cent. Injuries that the First Schedule does specify fall under s. 9(3)(a) and are outside s. 9(4).

Where attention is needed (s. 8): where permanent incapacity is "of such a nature that the employee is unable to perform the essential actions of life, without the attention of another person", up to a further $700,390 is payable in addition to everything else.

Two structural points are easy to miss:

• How it is paid — s. 8(2) sets out two shapes. Compensation under s. 8(1)(a) is either "a lump sum payment calculated with regard to the probable duration and cost of the attention", or periodical payments "payable at such intervals as the Court may order, to cover periods not exceeding a total of 2 years after the date on which the employee becomes entitled to receive compensation under section 7", followed, "if on the expiry of the period of 2 years prescribed in sub-paragraph (i) the Court considers that the employee is still in need of attention", by a further lump sum as the Court may order. The s. 8(1)(b) route is instead an agreement between employer and employee approved by the Commissioner — and under s. 8(7) no such agreement "shall be binding on any party thereto until the Commissioner has signified his approval thereof in writing".
• Nothing is payable for in-patient periods. Section 8(3): "No compensation under this section shall be payable in respect of any period during which the employee is receiving free medical treatment as an in-patient in a hospital or otherwise." That is a deduction internal to s. 8, separate from the ceiling.

3. Fatal cases

Where the work injury causes the employee's death, the family members (spouses or cohabitees, children, parents, grandparents and others, distributed under s. 6A and the Seventh Schedule) may claim:

• A lump-sum death compensation (s. 6(1)) — on the deceased's age and monthly earnings: 84 months under 40, 60 months at 40 or over but under 56, 36 months at 56 or over, with earnings capped at the Sixth Schedule figure of $38,670 and a statutory floor of $514,510 (s. 6(2)).
• Reimbursement of funeral and medical expenses (s. 6(5)) — "reimbursement of the reasonable expenses of the funeral of the deceased employee and the reasonable expenses of medical attendance on the deceased employee … shall be paid by the employer to any person who has paid the expenses", subject to a cap of HK$98,950. The section reimburses whoever laid out the money; it does not pay the expenses directly.

Section 6(3) adds a set-off: "Notwithstanding anything in subsection (1) or (2), where in respect of the same accident compensation has been paid under section 7 or 9, there shall be deducted from the sum payable under subsection (1) any sums so paid as compensation." So a permanent-incapacity award already paid comes off the death compensation if the employee later dies from the same accident.

The four gates described under "How the process actually works" are the s. 16A injury route. A death claim runs on ss. 6B to 6E, on different periods and from different start dates. Almost no work-injury guide sets this out, and it is the route a bereaved family actually has to walk:

• Section 6B — the Commissioner's determination in fatal cases. Where death results from the injury, the Commissioner may, "on application by the members of the family under subsection (4) and with the consent in writing of the employer and signed by him", determine the total compensation payable, who receives it and how much each receives, and who is not entitled, and then issue a Certificate of Compensation Assessment for Fatal Case. Two preconditions: a family member must apply, and the employer must consent in writing. Section 6B(2)(a) to (f) list six situations in which the Commissioner must not determine or continue to determine — no consent or consent withdrawn, a dispute on the familial connection, a party declining determination, a claim already filed with the Court, or the Commissioner's opinion that the claim "is not suitable for such determination" — and where the process is terminated, s. 6B(3)(a) provides that "the claim shall be determined by the Court pursuant to section 18A(1)".
• Two dates to keep apart. Section 6B(4)(b): the application must be made "within 6 months from the date of death of the employee or the date of accident if the date of death cannot be ascertained (but the Commissioner may, if he thinks fit, extend the period for making the application)". Section 6B(2)(g) is the hard line: the Commissioner must not determine where "the first application under subsection (4) has not been made within 24 months from the date of death of the employee". And s. 6B(1)(b)(ii) provides that the certificate issues "not earlier than 6 months from the date of death of the employee or the date of accident if the date of death cannot be ascertained" — so there is a floor as well as a ceiling.
• Section 6C — interim payments. These are applied for by the spouse (and s. 6C(17) provides that "spouse (配偶) does not include a cohabitee"). Under s. 6C(3)(b)(ii) the subsequent monthly payments are "calculated at the rate of 50% of" the deceased's monthly earnings as determined under s. 11, or the Sixth Schedule amount for s. 6(1)(a), "whichever is the less"; under s. 6C(3)(c) they "shall not in aggregate exceed 45% of the total amount of compensation payable under section 6(1)" after deducting anything already paid under ss. 7, 9 and 13(3). The initial payment falls due "not later than 21 days after the date of issue of the Certificate of Interim Payment" (s. 6C(4)(a)).
• Section 6D — the payment period on the main award. Section 6D(1): the employer must pay "not earlier than 42 days but not later than 49 days after the date of issue of the Certificate of Compensation Assessment for Fatal Case". Section 6D(2): where interim payments or s. 13(3) payments have been received, only the balance is due. The objection period is also different — s. 6D(4)(b) gives 30 days (not the 14 days of the injury route), "or within such further time as the Commissioner, in the circumstances of any particular case, thinks fit".
• Section 6E — funeral and medical attendance expenses. Applied for by whoever paid the expenses, again with the employer's written consent (a s. 6B(1) consent counts, under s. 6E(2)). Section 6E(3)(b): the application must be made "within 30 days from the date of cremation or date of burial of the employee, or the date on which the Commissioner receives the consent or deemed consent … whichever is the later" — one of the shortest periods in the Ordinance. The payment period in s. 6E(8) is the same 42-to-49 days.
• Late payment is surcharged here too. Sections 6C(8), 6D(3) and 6E(9) each carry the two-stage surcharge, on the same Sixth Schedule pair of $830 with 5% and $1,670 with 10% used in the table above; ss. 6C(15), 6D(10) and 6E(16) each make failure without reasonable excuse an offence with a fine at level 6.

And where the s. 6B route is not taken, where does the money go? Section 13(1): compensation payable where death has resulted from an injury, "other than those which have been determined under section 6B(1)(a), 6C(1)(a) or (11), 6D(6)(b) or 6E(1)(a) or (12), shall be paid to the Court", which may apportion it among the members of the family under s. 6A (limb (a)) or among those who paid the funeral and medical attendance expenses under s. 6E(5) (limb (b)) — and the sum apportioned "shall be paid to them or be invested, applied or otherwise dealt with for their benefit in such manner as the Court thinks fit". The subsection allows an order to be varied where family circumstances change, but its proviso bars any order "which requires the repayment by a dependant of any compensation already paid to him except where such payment has been obtained by fraud, impersonation or other improper means".

4. Medical expenses

The employer must pay the employee's reasonable medical expenses (consultation, surgery, nursing, in-patient accommodation, medication, dressings, and so on). Section 10A(2) makes them "payable in addition to any other compensation which the employer is liable to pay under this Ordinance" — they do not eat into the other heads. Section 10A(3) requires payment "in accordance with the Third Schedule in respect of the period during which the employee receives medical treatment until the attending registered medical practitioner, registered Chinese medicine practitioner or registered dentist certifies that in his opinion no further treatment is required".

The Third Schedule daily rates are $300 per day as an in-patient, $500 per day for treatment other than as an in-patient, and $700 for a day on which the employee is given both — in each case the expenses actually incurred or the daily-rate total, "whichever total amount is the less".

How the Third Schedule actually divides things up: it sets daily rates by in-patient / non-in-patient / both on the same day, not by specialty (in-patient, general out-patient, specialist, Chinese medicine, dentistry, physiotherapy). What is payable is fixed by s. 10A(1) — the medical expenses "for the medical treatment in respect of such injury" — read with the Third Schedule. Section 10A(5B) is not the provision that delimits it: it opens "In subsections (5) and (5A)", and does no more than define "a description of medical treatment" for the free-treatment substitution regime described below.

Six points to watch:

• Treatment outside Hong Kong — two cases, two provisions. Where the accident happened in Hong Kong and the treatment was given outside it, s. 10A(1A) applies: unless otherwise agreed in writing, the expenses do "not include those in respect of medical treatment given outside Hong Kong in relation to an accident occurring in Hong Kong". Where the accident itself occurred outside Hong Kong — the posted-abroad reader of the cross-border section above — the governing provision is s. 10AA, which applies to the employer's liability "for the payment of medical expenses for medical treatment, given outside Hong Kong, in respect of personal injury caused to an employee by accident occurring outside Hong Kong". Section 10AA(2) then removes the liability in four cases, of which (b) is a procedural gate: no liability for treatment given outside Hong Kong "unless and until a certificate has been issued by the Commissioner under section 10B(1)(b) stating the amount of such medical expenses". Limb (a) removes it altogether for accidents outside Hong Kong occurring before the commencement of the Employees' Compensation (Amendment) Ordinance 1995.
• Medicines are in; tonics are out. Section 10AB(2): the medical expenses an employer is liable to pay "(a) include the cost of medicines to the extent that the medicines are prescribed medicines for the direct treatment of the injury; but (b) do not include the cost of any tonic or substance that is prescribed for the purpose of the maintenance of general health only". Section 10AB(3) defines prescribed medicines as those "prescribed by a registered medical practitioner or registered dentist", or "Chinese herbal medicines or proprietary Chinese medicines prescribed by a registered Chinese medicine practitioner". Subsections (4) to (7) add registration, sale-channel and repeat-dispensing conditions, and s. 10AB(8) lets the employer or the Commissioner call for the prescription and the receipt — where the employee fails without reasonable excuse to produce them, the employer is not liable for the cost of medicines.
• The employer may provide free treatment instead — and one limb of that turns on the employee's own conduct. Section 10A(5) allows an employer to undertake in writing to provide adequate free medical treatment in place of paying. Section 10A(4) is the operative provision, and it removes the liability in two cases: "(a) if the employer has provided adequate free medical treatment to the employee; or (b) if, by a written undertaking given in accordance with subsection (5), the employer has agreed to provide adequate free medical treatment and the employee fails, without reasonable excuse, to submit himself for such medical treatment." So once a compliant written undertaking is in place, an employee who does not attend without reasonable excuse is not owed the expenses. (Section 10AA(2)(d) says the same for treatment given outside Hong Kong.) Section 10A(5A) nonetheless provides that this does not relieve the employer of liability for a description of treatment unless the free treatment "covers medical treatment of the same description", and s. 10A(5B) lists the descriptions: registered medical practitioner, registered Chinese medicine practitioner, registered dentist, registered physiotherapist, registered occupational therapist, registered chiropractor.
• How to recover — and the 21 days has two start dates. An employee who has paid may serve a written request with the receipt (s. 10A(6)). Section 10A(7) then runs the 21 days from the date of receipt of that request "or, where an application is made to the Commissioner under section 10B for the determination of a dispute, within 21 days after the date of determination of the dispute"; after that the sum is recoverable in the Small Claims Tribunal or, above its jurisdiction, the District Court.
• A dispute goes to s. 10B — the Commissioner determines it. Section 10B(1) requires the Commissioner, on application by employee or employer, to determine whether there is liability for medical expenses for treatment given outside Hong Kong and, if there is, to determine the amount and issue a certificate to both. Section 10B(2) covers treatment given in Hong Kong: where there is a dispute as to "(a) the liability to pay medical expenses under section 10A; or (b) the amount of such medical expenses", the Commissioner must, on application, make the corresponding determination and issue a certificate. Under s. 10B(3) that certificate "shall be admitted in evidence without further proof on its production in any court" and "shall be evidence of the amount of medical expenses payable by the employer". Section 10B(4) adds a further 14-day line: either side may apply to the Court within 14 days of the certificate, "or within such further time as the Court, in the circumstances of any particular case, thinks fit", to review the determination; the Court "may confirm, vary or reverse the determination or may substitute its own determination for that of the Commissioner".

The Third Schedule as quoted here is the one in the version of Cap. 282 in force on 14 May 2026, last amended by L.N. 209 of 2025. (The consolidated text carries no commencement date for that Legal Notice, and none is stated here.)

5. Other

• Prostheses and orthopaedic appliances. Section 36B(1) — opening "Subject to the provisions of this section" — provides that where personal injury is caused by an accident arising out of and in the course of the employment, "the employer shall, notwithstanding any other compensation he may be liable to pay under this Ordinance, be liable to pay for the cost of supplying and fitting to the employee a prosthesis or surgical appliance required by him as a result of his injury". Section 36B(1A) makes that liability arise "whether or not the injury has resulted or is likely to result in any temporary incapacity or permanent incapacity causing a loss of earning capacity". The cap is $47,310 in aggregate per employee per accident (s. 36C). On repair and renewal, s. 36I carries a ten-year window that is easy to miss: what the employer must pay for is "the probable cost of the normal repair and renewal of the prosthesis or surgical appliance during a period of 10 years after the date on which the prosthesis or surgical appliance is originally fitted", capped at $143,320 (s. 36J).

Those opening words point at s. 36B(2) — three conditions. "The employer shall not be liable under subsection (1) unless— (a) the employee submits himself to treatment by a registered medical practitioner, a registered Chinese medicine practitioner or a registered dentist; … (b) the prosthesis or surgical appliance is supplied and fitted to the employee; and (c) the prosthesis or surgical appliance so supplied and fitted is— (i) manufactured or on sale in Hong Kong; and (ii) certified by the Board under section 36M(4)." Two exits: s. 36B(2A), where the employee was injured outside Hong Kong and treated there by someone lawfully practising in that place, the employer is liable notwithstanding (2)(a) "if the Board so approves"; and s. 36B(3), where the appliance is not manufactured or on sale in Hong Kong and the Director approves, the employer is liable notwithstanding (2)(c)(i).

Who brings the claim — not the employee. Section 36D(1): "A claim for the cost of supplying and fitting any prosthesis or surgical appliance which the employer is liable to pay under section 36B may be made by the Director by serving on the employer a request in writing for the payment of the cost." Section 36E(1) then gives the employer one month: on receipt of that request, and "before the expiry of 1 month from the time of receipt", he must pay the cost to the Director "unless he disputes his liability to pay or the necessity or cost of the prosthesis or surgical appliance". If he does dispute, s. 36E(2) requires him within the same period to deposit the amount with the Director and serve a notice setting out the grounds; and s. 36E(3) provides that if he disputes but "fails without reasonable excuse to comply with the provisions of subsection (2), he shall be deemed to have agreed to pay the amount of the cost claimed in the request for payment". Where there is a dispute, s. 36F(1) provides that it "shall be determined by the Court", and s. 36F(2) requires the Court to "order the return of the deposit to the employer if it finds the employer not liable or that the prosthesis or surgical appliance is not necessary for the employee"; s. 36G gives the Director the enforcement route — where the employer fails to pay in time or disputes the claim, "an application to the Court in the prescribed form and manner may be made by the Director for enforcing his claim to the amount of the cost or for the determination of the dispute". Section 36LA(1) further lets the Director, where the employer "cannot be readily located in Hong Kong", "is insolvent", or the insurer "has disclaimed liability", "take proceedings directly against the insurer for a claim under this Part as if the insurer were the employer" — the same three limbs as s. 44(3) below.

Where the money comes from. Section 36L(1): subject to the Director's rights of recovery from the employer, the cost of the supplying and fitting, and of the normal repair and renewal whenever incurred, "shall be payable out of the general revenue of Hong Kong". Whether the appliance is necessary, what it should cost, and the total probable cost of ten years' repair and renewal are all determined by the Prostheses and Surgical Appliances Board (s. 36M(2)(a) to (c)), which certifies under s. 36M(4).

The time limit is different too: under s. 36H, headed "Claim under section 36B to be made within 5 years", such claims "shall be made within 5 years from the occurrence of the accident giving rise to the injury" — longer than the general 24 months. But that five years attaches to the s. 36D(1) claim, and under s. 36D(1) the person who makes it is the Director, not the employee.

• Vocational rehabilitation services in some cases, arranged by the Government or the insurer. (No provision is cited for this; it is not something Cap. 282 provides for — see "Matters this article does not address" below.)

Working the numbers

Using only amounts fixed by the Ordinance itself (the Sixth and Third Schedules) and percentages already used above. No individual case is involved.

Step 1: how the earnings ceiling actually works. Section 7(1)(a) reads "a lump sum equal to 96 months’ earnings or 96 times the amount specified in the second column of the Sixth Schedule … whichever is the less". The ceiling is therefore not a separate cap on the total but a cap on the monthly figure the multiplier is applied to — $38,670. Running the three bands at that ceiling:

• Under 40: 96 × $38,670 = HK$3,712,320
• 40 or over but under 56: 72 × $38,670 = HK$2,784,240
• 56 or over: 48 × $38,670 = HK$1,856,160

Step 2: apply the s. 9 percentage. Taking the 30% loss of earning capacity used throughout this article:

• Under 40: 3,712,320 × 30% = HK$1,113,696
• 56 or over: 1,856,160 × 30% = HK$556,848
• Difference: 1,113,696 − 556,848 = HK$556,848

On identical earnings and an identical percentage, the age band alone doubles the s. 9 head (96 months against 48). That is the real weight behind "younger employees have higher multipliers".

Step 3: run it from the floor instead. Section 11(5) deems earnings computed below $5,710 to be $5,710. At that floor, s. 7(1) gives:

• Under 40: 96 × $5,710 = HK$548,160
• 40 or over but under 56: 72 × $5,710 = HK$411,120
• 56 or over: 48 × $5,710 = HK$274,080

But s. 7(2) says the compensation "shall in no case be less than" $584,220. All three bands fall below that floor, so all three are lifted to $584,220. Even the closest band (under 40) is short by 584,220 − 548,160 = HK$36,060.

This site's reading (ss. 11(5) and 7(2) read together): at very low earnings the age multipliers in s. 7(1) stop doing any work at all — every band computes below the s. 7(2) floor and every band therefore pays the same sum. The multipliers only start to separate above a certain earnings level. Deriving that level from the same statutory figures: $584,220 ÷ 96 = $6,085.625 a month; ÷ 72 = $8,114.16…; ÷ 48 = $12,171.25. (Arithmetic, not a threshold the Ordinance states.)

Step 4: sick-leave pay on the same floor. The four-fifths rule in s. 10(1), at the s. 11(5) floor, with the employee earning nothing during the sick leave:

• Per month: $5,710 × 4 ÷ 5 = HK$4,568
• Over the 24 months in s. 10(5): 24 × $4,568 = HK$109,632
• With the further 12 months the Court may allow: 36 × $4,568 = HK$164,448

Step 5: what the Third Schedule rule for a day of both kinds of treatment is worth. Paragraphs 1 and 2 set $300 a day as an in-patient and $500 a day otherwise; paragraph 3 sets "$700" as the daily rate for a day on which both are given. This site's reading: $700 is less than $300 + $500 = $800, so a day of both in-patient and out-patient treatment carries a Schedule ceiling $100 lower than the two rates added together. The Schedule treats that day as a single charging day, not as two rates stacked.

(This is an arithmetic demonstration built on amounts the Ordinance and its Schedules fix. It is not an assessment of any reader's case. The real figure turns on earnings computed under s. 11, the age band in s. 7(1), the percentage assessed by a Board or the Court, and the sick-leave days a doctor certifies.)

How the process actually works

There are four gates: notice, reporting, assessment, payment. Each carries a statutory number of days, and each has a provision saying what happens if the employer does not comply.

(These four gates are the injury route — the s. 16A route. A fatal claim does not run on them: it runs on ss. 6B to 6E, on different periods, different start dates and a different objection window. See "A fatal claim does not run on the four gates below" above.)

Gate 1: notice to the employer (s. 14)

The employee should notify the employer as soon as practicable after the accident. Section 14(1) puts it as a precondition: proceedings to recover compensation are not maintainable unless notice of the accident has been given to the employer by or on behalf of the employee "as soon as practicable after the happening thereof and before the employee has voluntarily left the employment in which he was injured".

The notice need not be formal. Section 14(2) allows it "either in writing or orally to the employer (or, if there is more than one employer, to one of such employers), or to any foreman or other official under whose supervision the employee is employed, or to any person designated for the purpose by the employer", and requires only that it "specify the name and address of the person injured, and shall state in ordinary language the cause of the injury and the date on which and the place at which the accident occurred".

A missing notice is not necessarily fatal — s. 14(1) carries its own proviso. It provides that "the want of, or any defect or irregularity in, a notice shall not be a bar to the maintenance of proceedings" in two situations: (a) where the application is made in respect of a death from an accident which occurred on the employer's premises, or at a place where the employee was working under the control of the employer or of someone employed by him, and the employee died on those premises or at that place, on any premises belonging to the employer, or "without having left the vicinity of the premises or place where the accident occurred"; or (b) "if the employer is proved to have had knowledge of the accident from any other source at or about the time of the accident", or if it is found in the proceedings for settling the claim that the employer is not prejudiced (or would not be, if notice or an amended notice were given and the hearing postponed) in his defence, "or that such want, defect or irregularity was occasioned by mistake, absence from Hong Kong, or other reasonable cause". That proviso and the "reasonable excuse" exit in s. 14(4) are two separate doors — limb (b) asks for no excuse at all, only that the employer knew anyway or is not prejudiced.

Employed by a sub-contractor: the principal contractor is a compensation debtor too (s. 24)

Where the name on the payslip is a small sub-contractor's, the Ordinance gives you more than one party to look to. Section 24, headed "Liability in case of employees employed by sub-contractors", subsection (1): where a person (the section calls him the principal contractor), "in the course of or for the purposes of his trade or business, contracts with a sub-contractor for the execution by or under the sub-contractor of the whole or any part of any work undertaken by the principal contractor", the principal contractor "shall be liable to pay to any employee employed by that sub-contractor or by any other sub-contractor in the execution of the work any compensation under this Ordinance which the principal contractor would have been liable to pay if that employee had been immediately employed by him". Note "or by any other sub-contractor" — the chain is covered however many layers deep. On a claim against the principal contractor, "references to the principal contractor shall be substituted for references to the employer", except that compensation calculated by reference to earnings is still "calculated by reference to the earnings of the employee under the employer by whom he is immediately employed".

• Do not know who the principal contractor is? Ask in writing; the answer is due in 7 days. Section 24(3) lets an employee employed by a sub-contractor "issue a written request to the sub-contractor to supply to the employee the name and address of the principal contractor", and s. 24(4) requires the sub-contractor, "within 7 days after the date of issue" of that request, to supply the name and address and to deliver a copy of the request to the principal contractor. A sub-contractor who without reasonable excuse fails to comply "commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 5" (s. 24(5)).
• Notice to the sub-contractor counts as notice to the principal contractor. Section 14(3): where s. 24 applies, notice of an accident given in accordance with s. 14 to the sub-contractor, or to any foreman or other official under whose supervision the employee is employed, or to any person designated for the purpose by the sub-contractor, "shall be deemed to be notice to the principal contractor". That answers the standard site scenario in which the small sub-contractor folds and the worker is told he served the wrong party.
• But a separate notice is required before claiming against the principal contractor. Section 24(6): an employee shall, "before making any claim or application by virtue of this section against a principal contractor", serve on him a written notice stating five things — the employee's name and address; the name and address of the sub-contractor employing him; the address of the place of employment; "the particulars of the accident and the injury suffered"; and "the amount of compensation to be claimed".
• Once that notice is served, the principal contractor must notify the sub-contractor back. Section 24(7): where a claim or application is made by virtue of the section against a principal contractor, he "shall give notice thereof to the sub-contractor specified in the notice served on the principal contractor under subsection (6), who shall thereupon be entitled to intervene in any application made against the principal contractor". The sub-contractor named in the s. 24(6) notice is pulled back into the proceedings — which is a reason to get that field right.
• The principal contractor also carries offences. Section 24(1A): where he is liable to pay compensation under the section, "he shall be liable for the offences under sections 6C(15), 6D(10), 6E(16), 10(10), 16A(12) and 16I(6) as if he were an employer".
• It is not one or the other. Section 24(8) provides that nothing in the section "shall be construed as preventing an employee recovering compensation under this Ordinance from a subcontractor instead of the principal contractor"; and s. 24(2) gives a principal contractor who pays a right to be indemnified by whoever would have been liable independently of the section. That settling-up is between them, not the employee's problem.

Gate 2: the employer's report to the Labour Department (s. 15)

Section 15 is not one "14-day report". It is four separate lines, and on one of them even the form is different.

All four share one premise: the duty bites whether or not any compensation is owed. Section 15(1) reads: "Notice of any accident which results in the death of the employee within 3 days after the accident shall be given in the prescribed form to the Commissioner by the employer not later than 7 days after the accident irrespective of whether the accident gives rise to any liability to pay compensation."

The 3-day line inside s. 15(1A) is the part worth noticing. Paragraph (b) says the notice is "in the form specified by the Commissioner", not in the prescribed form — that is, for the short cases the format is set administratively rather than by regulation. And if the incapacity later runs longer, s. 15(1BA) requires a top-up: the employer "shall give further notice of the accident to the Commissioner in the form prescribed for the purposes of subsection (1A)(a) not later than 14 days after the extension of the incapacity beyond the period referred to in subsection (1A)(b) was first brought to the notice of the employer or otherwise came to his knowledge".

The clock can start later — and also earlier. Where the employer was not told and did not otherwise know within those 7 or 14 days, s. 15(1B) runs the period from when the employer first learns of it. But s. 15(5) presumes the other way: "For the purposes of subsections (1) and (2), the death of an employee on the premises of his employer shall be deemed to be within the knowledge of such employer."

The Commissioner can also demand a report. Section 15(1C) lets the Commissioner, for an accident that "may give rise to a liability to pay compensation", to which subsections (1) and (1A) do not apply, and which does not result in death, require notice by written notice to the employer "in the prescribed form within such period, not being less than 7 days, as is specified in the notice to the employer".

Failure has teeth. Under s. 15(6), an employer who without reasonable excuse fails to give the required notice, or who makes a false or misleading statement in it, "commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 5".

"Form 2", "Form 3" — which form is which?

This is easy to get wrong, and a good deal of work-injury guidance does get it wrong, so it is worth checking each one against the Employees' Compensation Regulations (Cap. 282 sub. leg. A).

The Regulations prescribe five forms and no others: Forms 1, 1A, 2, 2A and 3.

• Forms 1 and 1A — the employee's notice to the employer. Regulation 3: "The notice of an accident required by section 14 of the Ordinance to be given to an employer by or on behalf of an employee if given in writing may be in Form 1 in the Schedule where the accident caused personal injury and in Form 1A in the Schedule in the case of incapacity or death due to an occupational disease."
• Forms 2 and 2A — the employer's notice to the Commissioner for Labour. Regulation 4(a): "if the notice is required under section 15(1), (1A)(a), (1B) or (2), shall be in Form 2 in the Schedule where the accident caused personal injury and in Form 2A in the Schedule in the case of incapacity or death due to an occupational disease". Note the list: reg. 4 covers ss. 15(1), (1A)(a), (1B), (1C) and (2) — s. 15(1A)(b), the not-more-than-3-days case, is not on it, which is why those go on a form the Commissioner specifies instead.
• Form 3 is a court-filing form, not an employee's injury report. Regulation 5 deals with a certificate already issued (under s. 16A(2) or (5), a Certificate of Interim Payment, a Certificate of Compensation Assessment for Fatal Case, or a Certificate for Funeral and Medical Attendance Expenses) and provides that "the details of such certificate shall be given in Form 3 in the Schedule and lodged with Registrar of the Court".

But that does not make Form 3 irrelevant to an employee. Regulation 5(a) reads in full: a certificate stating the amount of compensation payable "has been issued under section 16A(2) or (5) of the Ordinance and it is desired to proceed in accordance with section 16A(8) of the Ordinance" — and s. 16A(8) is the step that turns the certificate into a court order. A certificate issued "(a) under subsection (2), other than a certificate cancelled under subsection (6); or (b) under subsection (5), may, on application to the Court by the employer, the employee, the ECAFB or the Commissioner, be made an order of the Court and, for the purposes of this subsection, the amount payable under any such certificate shall include any surcharge payable in respect thereof under subsection (10)." The employee is one of the four applicants the subsection names. So Form 3 is not the form for reporting an injury; it is the form for the stage after — you hold a certificate and wish to have it made a court order — and the order carries the surcharge with it. (Non-payment by the employer is the common practical reason to reach this stage, but neither reg. 5 nor s. 16A(8) makes it a stated legal precondition; both require only that the certificate has been issued and that one wishes to proceed under s. 16A(8).)

Form 1 is the employee's form. Form 3 is the form for putting a certificate before the court. The form reg. 3 points the employee to is Form 1 — and it goes to the employer, under s. 14. Do not read that backwards, though. Regulation 3 is permissive on its face — a written notice "may be in Form 1" — s. 14(2) allows notice orally, and reg. 7 provides: "The forms contained in the Schedule or forms to the like effect shall be used with such variations and modifications as the circumstances may require." A letter or a message carrying what s. 14(2) requires does not fail for not being the printed form. (The two authentic texts of reg. 3 read differently on this: the English says a written notice "may be in Form 1 in the Schedule", the Chinese 「須符合附表內表格1的格式」. Read with s. 14(2) and reg. 7, both arrive at the same place.) As for an employee approaching the Labour Department directly, neither Cap. 282 nor its Regulations prescribes any form for that; whatever the Labour Department uses is an administrative arrangement outside the Ordinance, and nothing is said about it here. What the Ordinance does leave is s. 15(7): "Nothing contained in this section shall prevent any person from making a claim for compensation under this Ordinance." Whether the employer reports and whether the employee can claim are two different questions.

The two-tier assessment regime

A key procedural feature is medical assessment — determining the severity of the injury and the percentage of loss of earning capacity. The ECO establishes a two-tier regime:

First tier: Employees' Compensation (Ordinary Assessment) Board (s. 16D) — assessing more common work injuries. The Commissioner may refer a claim to it where in his opinion the injury "is likely to result in permanent total or partial incapacity" (s. 16D(4)). The Board must do two things: "(a) … assess the percentage of the loss of earning capacity permanently caused by the injury in accordance with this Ordinance; and (b) assess the period of absence from duty necessary as a result of the injury" (s. 16D(5)).

Second tier: Employees' Compensation (Special Assessment) Board (s. 16E) — for more serious or complex cases. The statute draws the trigger narrowly: where it appears to an Ordinary Assessment Board that a claim "is one to which section 9(1A) applies, it shall refer the claim to a Special Assessment Board" (s. 16D(6)), and the Special Assessment Board then assesses the percentage for the purposes of s. 9(1A) (s. 16E(9)).

The composition of the two Boards is not what most people assume — it is not one doctor against two doctors:

• Ordinary Assessment Board (s. 16D(2)): "(a) 2 persons each of whom shall be a registered medical practitioner, a registered Chinese medicine practitioner or a registered dentist; and … (b) a Senior Labour Officer or a Labour Officer." A decision, if not unanimous, "shall be that of the majority of the members thereof" (s. 16D(7)).
• Special Assessment Board (s. 16E(2)): one of the Occupational Health Consultant, a Senior Occupational Health Officer or an Occupational Health Officer; a Senior Labour Officer; and a Labour Officer who also sits on an Ordinary Assessment Board. The Commissioner may appoint "not more than 2 persons" as additional expert members (s. 16E(4)). Three members form a quorum (s. 16E(7)).

The assessment result is issued as a Certificate of Assessment, specifying the necessary period of sick leave and the percentage of loss of earning capacity. Section 16F, headed "Certificates of assessment", requires the Board to "issue to the employee, the employer and the Commissioner a certificate in such form as may be specified by the Commissioner giving details of the assessment". This certificate is the foundation of subsequent compensation calculation.

Note that the Ordinance gives this certificate no form number. Section 16F says only "in such form as may be specified by the Commissioner", and the five forms the Employees' Compensation Regulations do prescribe (Forms 1, 1A, 2, 2A, 3) do not include a certificate of assessment. So "Form 5", as non-statutory guidance commonly calls it, is not a form number the Regulations prescribe; what number the Labour Department uses administratively lies outside the Ordinance and nothing is said about it here.

Two different objections — do not merge them. The Ordinance contains two independent 14-day routes for objecting to the Commissioner, and they object to different things (the 14 days in s. 10B(4) is a separate thing again — an application to the Court to review a medical-expenses determination; see "Medical expenses" above):

• Against the Board's percentage and sick-leave assessment — s. 16G(1): the employer or the employee may object in writing to the Commissioner "within 14 days after the date of issue to him of the relevant certificate under section 16F, or within a further time that the Commissioner, in the circumstances of any particular case, thinks fit, stating the ground of the objection", with a copy to the other side. Once an objection is made, s. 16G(1A)(b) provides that "all issued certificates and proceedings in progress under or pursuant to section 16A are void"; the same Board then reviews and "may confirm or vary the assessment" (s. 16G(2)).
• Against the Commissioner's computation of compensation — s. 16A(3), under Gate 4 below.

There is a third route: a Board can reopen its own assessment (s. 16GA). This one waits for nobody to object. Section 16GA(1) lets an Ordinary or Special Assessment Board, "on its own initiative", review its own assessment "within 3 months after the date of issue of a certificate under section 16F, or within such further time as the Ordinary Assessment Board or the Special Assessment Board, in the circumstances of any particular case, thinks fit", where the assessment "(a) was made in ignorance of, or under a mistake as to, the true nature or the extent of the injury; or … (b) was based upon any false or misleading information or statement given or made", and it "may confirm or vary the assessment". Section 16GA(3) requires the Board first to notify employer, employee and Commissioner in writing of the review and its ground. Where the employer has fed a Board a false account of the injury, this is the most direct way back.

None of the three is an appeal. The appeal proper is s. 18, to the District Court, with the limit set out under Gate 4.

Attending the assessment is paid time. Section 16I(1) lets the Commissioner or a Board require the employee to attend for examination or assessment; s. 16I(3) then requires the employer, where the employee is not already on leave and not already receiving s. 10 periodical payments, to "grant to the employee leave of absence from work" and, "subject to subsection (4)", to pay the wages or salary for that absence "within 7 days after the day on which wages are normally paid to the employee next following such absence from work". An employer who without reasonable excuse contravenes that "commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 5" (s. 16I(6)).

Subsection (4) is that condition, and it is the only one: "No wages or salary shall be payable under subsection (3) by an employer unless he was the employer of the employee at the time of the accident." The leave and the pay are the responsibility of the employer at the time of the accident; an employer taken on since is not caught. For recovery, s. 16I(5) allows the claim to be brought "as an action for civil debt in any court or tribunal of competent jurisdiction", or "as a claim for compensation in the Court, either independently of or in conjunction with any other claim for compensation brought in the Court".

Gate 3: the Commissioner's assessment and the 24-month line

A claim for compensation must arise within 24 months of the accident (or such longer period as may be allowed for good cause) — the provision requires the claim to arise, not that the employee personally lodge it with the Commissioner: s. 15(3)(b) lets the Commissioner make the claim on the employee's behalf if the employee so requests. The line appears twice in the Ordinance, governing two different routes:

• Administrative route: s. 16A(1A) — "Compensation shall not be assessed by the Commissioner under subsection (1) unless claim for compensation arises within 24 months after the happening of the accident."
• Court route: s. 14(1) — proceedings are not maintainable unless "the application for compensation with respect to such accident (being an application to the Court by an employee under section 18A(2)) has been made within 24 months from the occurrence of the accident causing the injury or, in the case of death, within 24 months from the date of death or prior to a determination made by the Commissioner under section 6B(1)(a), whichever is the earlier".

But s. 18A(2) carries its own proviso about how early you may apply. The subsection lets an employee "in the prescribed form and manner, make an application for enforcing his claim for compensation to the Court", and then adds: "Provided that no application shall be made— (a) in the case of a claim in respect of an injury to which section 16A applies, until after the expiry of the payment period within the meaning of subsection (11) of that section." So where the s. 16A route is running, no court application can be made before the payment period has expired. The 24 months is the latest the application may be made; the s. 18A(2) proviso fixes the earliest. The two have to be read together.

The exit is s. 14(4): the Court may still receive and determine the application notwithstanding that no notice was given or the application was out of time, "if it is satisfied that there was reasonable excuse for the failure so to give notice or to make an application, as the case may be".

Gate 4: payment, surcharges and appeal

Having assessed, the Commissioner issues a certificate to employer and employee (s. 16A(2)). Then:

• 21 days to pay (s. 16A(9)): the subsection opens "Subject to section 18" — an appeal bears on it — and the 21 days runs from one of two dates: "(a) the date of issue of the certificate issued under subsection (2); or (b) where an objection is made under subsection (3), the date of issue of the certificate issued under subsection (5)". Limb (b) is the common case in practice. The employer must pay the balance stated in the certificate after deducting "(i) the total sum of any periodical payments made by the employer to the employee under section 10 in respect of the injury to which the certificate relates; and (ii) any sum which the Commissioner has ordered to be deducted under section 13(3)". (Section 13(3) is the statutory basis on which an employer's advance payment comes off the award: an employer "may make a payment direct to an employee or member of the family on account of a claim which is pending settlement or determination", and the Court or the Commissioner may order the whole or part of it to be deducted. Its proviso shuts an important door, though: no such payment shall "(a) constitute a periodical payment or an interim payment for the purposes of this Ordinance; or (b) relieve the employer of an obligation to make any periodical payment or an interim payment under this Ordinance." Money handed over "to tide you over" is not sick-leave pay or an interim payment, and it does not stop the s. 10 periodical payments falling due.)
• Objection to the amount: the employer, the employee or the Employees Compensation Assistance Fund Board may object in writing within 14 days of the date of issue of the certificate, stating the grounds (s. 16A(3)). That 14 days is not an absolute bar either — s. 16A(3)(b) allows it "or within such further time as the Commissioner, in the circumstances of any particular case, thinks fit". (For the Board, the 14 days runs from the date the employee applies under s. 16 of the Employees Compensation Assistance Ordinance (Cap. 365).)
• Late payment without reasonable excuse carries a surcharge (s. 16A(10)): the subsection opens "An employer who fails without reasonable excuse to comply with subsection (9)" — the surcharge is not automatic on expiry. Where it does bite: (a) on expiry of the payment period, 5% "of the amount of compensation then remaining unpaid" or $830, whichever is the greater; and (b) on the expiry of 3 months after that, a further 10% or $1,670, whichever is the greater — but on a wider base, since limb (b) runs on "the amount then remaining unpaid of the aggregate of the amount of compensation referred to in paragraph (a) and the surcharge imposed under that paragraph". The first surcharge is inside the second surcharge's base. Separately, failure without reasonable excuse to comply with subsection (9) "commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 6" (s. 16A(12)).
• A further route that skips objection and goes straight to the Court — s. 16B, "Cancellation of injuries claim certificate by the Court". Section 16B(1): notwithstanding anything in s. 16A, the Court may, "on application by the employer, the employee, the Commissioner or the ECAFB, cancel a certificate issued under section 16A(2) or (5) and make such order (including an order as to any sum already paid under the certificate) as in the circumstances the Court may think just", if it is proved that "(a) the sum paid or to be paid was or is not in accordance with the provisions of this Ordinance; or (b) the certificate was issued in ignorance of, or under a mistake as to, the true nature or the extent of the injury; or … (c) the certificate was based upon any false or misleading information or statement given or made". The limit is 6 months: under s. 16B(2) the application "shall be made within 6 months of the date of issue of the certificate in respect of which the application is made, or within such further time as the Court, in the circumstances of any particular case, thinks fit". It pairs with s. 16CB below: one cancels the Commissioner's certificate, in the Court, within 6 months; the other cancels a s. 16CA agreement, before the Commissioner, within 6 months.
• Challenging an assessment: section 18, headed "Appeals to the Court", provides that "Subject to this section, an appeal shall lie to the District Court from any decision or assessment of the Commissioner, an Ordinary Assessment Board or a Special Assessment Board under section 16A, 16D, 16E, 16G or 16GA" (s. 18(1)). The limit is 6 months from the decision or from the date of issue of the certificate, but "the Court may, if it thinks fit, extend the time within which to appeal under this section notwithstanding that the time has elapsed" (s. 18(2)). On appeal the Court may confirm or reverse a decision, confirm or vary an assessment, or substitute its own (s. 18(3)).

This site's reading (s. 16A(10)): the surcharge is structured as a percentage or a flat sum, whichever is the greater, so there is a crossover point. Setting 5% × X = $830 gives X = $16,600; setting 10% × X = $1,670 gives X = $16,700. Below roughly sixteen and a half thousand dollars outstanding, the flat sum governs; above it, the percentage does. (Arithmetic, not a threshold the section states — and the two X's are not the same quantity: the first is the unpaid compensation, the second the unpaid part of that compensation aggregated with the first surcharge.)

While you are still incapacitated, the employer cannot dismiss you

Section 48, headed "Contract of service not to be terminated during incapacity", provides that an employer shall not, without the consent of the Commissioner, terminate the contract of service or apprenticeship of an employee who has suffered incapacity entitling him to compensation, or give notice of such termination, before the Commissioner has issued a s. 16A(2) certificate, or the employer has entered into a s. 16CA(1) agreement, or a Board has issued a s. 16F or 16G(3) certificate, "whichever occurs first". Even for temporary incapacity not exceeding 3 days, s. 48(1A) requires the employer to wait until the period has expired and the s. 10 compensation has been paid. Contravention "shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on conviction to a fine at level 6" (s. 48(2)).

Practical steps

• Promptly notify the employer and obtain a written record (WhatsApp message, email, letter). The section asks only for the cause, date and place "in ordinary language" (s. 14(2)); the written record exists to prove the notice was given "as soon as practicable".
• Seek medical attention and retain all medical records and receipts — diagnosis certificates, sick leave certificates, medical expense receipts, physiotherapy records, imaging. The sick-leave certificate is not merely a medical document; it is the unit of computation under s. 10(2).
• Preserve accident-scene evidence — photographs, witness contacts, CCTV footage (where available), construction records.
• A written notice to the employer may be in Form 1 (Employees' Compensation Regulations (Cap. 282 sub. leg. A), reg. 3; Form 1A for occupational disease). The employer in turn reports to the Commissioner for Labour in Form 2 (reg. 4). If the employer does not report, that does not touch your right to claim (s. 15(7)) — but do not wait on it: s. 15 is the employer's duty, while the s. 14 and s. 16A(1A) clocks are yours.
• Attend the Assessment Board. The Labour Department will arrange assessment; the employee must attend (s. 16I(1)), and the employer must grant leave and pay wages for that absence (s. 16I(3)).
• Receive the Certificate of Assessment (s. 16F — the form is one the Commissioner specifies; the Ordinance gives it no number).
• The employer (through the insurer) computes compensation. Disagree with the Board's percentage or sick-leave assessment: object to the Commissioner within 14 days (s. 16G(1)). Disagree with the Commissioner's computation: object within 14 days (s. 16A(3)). Appeal a decision or assessment: to the District Court (s. 18, six months, extendable).

The compulsory insurance obligation

Employees' compensation insurance is not a should — it is an obligation policed by a criminal offence, and in defined circumstances the employee can go past the employer straight to the insurer.

Under s. 40 of the ECO, headed "Compulsory insurance against employer’s liability", subsection (1), every employer must maintain valid employees' compensation insurance for its employees — regardless of employee count, contract form, or full-time / part-time status:

Failure to maintain valid insurance is itself a criminal offence, punishable by fine and imprisonment. Section 40(2) sets it out: on conviction on indictment, a fine at level 6 and imprisonment for 2 years; on summary conviction, a fine at level 6 and imprisonment for 1 year.

The minimum cover varies with employee numbers (Fourth Schedule, "Minimum Insurance Cover for the Purpose of Section 40"): where the number of employees covered by the policy "does not exceed 200", $100 million per event; where it "exceeds 200", $200 million per event. A principal contractor taking out a policy under s. 40(1B), or a group of companies under s. 40(1C), is at $200 million per event. (The Chinese text of the Fourth Schedule writes the same figures as $100,000,000 and $200,000,000.)

The duty has one express gap. Section 40(1A): subsection (1) "does not require an employer to obtain insurance for any liability he may have in respect of damages awarded by a court outside Hong Kong to an employee referred to in section 30B." So for a posted worker who succeeds in a foreign court, that award is not within the statutory minimum cover.

When an injury occurs, the employee is in substance recovering from the employer's insurer. Section 44, headed "Right of injured party to proceed against insurer", subsection (1) reads in full:

The opening qualifier matters. 「在符合第42條的規定下」 — "subject to section 42" — is not decoration; it sets the ceiling.

What is s. 42? Section 42(1), headed "Insurer’s liability": "Notwithstanding anything in a policy of insurance issued for the purposes of this Part, an insurer is liable, in a proceeding under section 36LA or 44, for the amount of the liability of the employer not exceeding the available amount covered by the policy of insurance." Section 42(1A) then nails down the point most likely to be misread — that the s. 40 duty to insure for a given sum does not by itself make the insurer answer for that sum. The insurer is liable up to "the available amount covered by the policy of insurance issued for the purposes of this Part notwithstanding the obligation imposed upon the employer by section 40 to insure for an amount in excess of the amount insured."

So where does that gap go? Not to s. 42(3). Section 42(3) does a different job: "Where under this Part an amount is paid by the insurer which would, but for this section, not be payable under the policy of insurance, the employer is liable to pay that amount to the insurer." That reaches the amounts the insurer is forced by s. 42 to pay over the policy's own terms, and lets it recover them from the employer (s. 43(4) repeats the formula for s. 43). The difference between the Fourth Schedule minimum and the sum actually insured is not one of those amounts: ss. 42(1) and (1A) stop the insurer at "the available amount covered by the policy", so the insurer never pays it and there is nothing for s. 42(3) to recoup. That shortfall remains the employer's own liability to the employee — it does not disappear because the insurer was sued, and it is not something the insurer advances and claims back.

Ordinarily the employee must also sue the employer (s. 44(2)). But even where the employer is insolvent, the insurer remains liable — and s. 44(3) says so expressly: where the employee has reasonable grounds to be satisfied that "(a) the person insured cannot be readily located in Hong Kong; (b) the person insured is insolvent; or (c) the insurer has disclaimed liability under the policy of insurance", he may proceed against the insurer without taking proceedings against the employer.

Want to know whether the boss holds cover? The first step needs no request at all — it should already be on the wall. Section 41, headed "Notice of insurance", subsection (1) requires an employer issued a policy for the purposes of this Part to "display, in a conspicuous place on each of his premises where any employee is employed by him, a notice, in such form as may be specified by the Commissioner, showing in both the English and Chinese languages" seven things: "(a) the name of the employer; (b) the name of the insurer; (c) the policy number; (d) the date of issue of the policy; (e) the dates of commencement and expiry of the period of insurance; … (f) the number of employees insured under the policy at the time of issue thereof; and … (g) the amount of the liability insured under the policy." Section 41(2) exempts a policy relating solely to domestic servants of the employer's private household, or to a s. 30B employee working outside Hong Kong. This one has teeth. Section 41(3): an employer who without reasonable excuse contravenes subsection (1) "commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 3". Section 41(4): "Any employer who without reasonable excuse provides any false or misleading information in a notice under subsection (1) commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 5." So the insurer's name, the policy number and the amount insured are things a wall notice is already supposed to carry — and putting false figures on it is punished harder than not putting one up.

The second step is s. 44A, "Employer must produce policy". An insured employer "shall, within 10 days after receiving the written request of an employee or other person having a claim against the employer, produce for inspection to the employee or other person or his agent the policy of insurance and all other documents relating to the policy." To see the policy itself rather than the summary, put the request in writing and the section gives ten days. (No penalty is attached to s. 44A itself — by contrast with ss. 41(3), 41(4) and 45C(2), which each state one. That is a statement about s. 44A only; nothing is asserted here about whether any other provision of Cap. 282 might reach the failure.)

The Commissioner's version of the same demand does have teeth. Section 45C, headed "Notice to produce documents etc.", lets the Commissioner by written notice require an employer to produce for inspection, on a date, time and place specified, "(a) a policy of insurance issued and in force for the purposes of this Part … or a cover note in respect of any such policy of insurance, or such other evidence as to the existence of any such policy as the Commissioner may specify in the notice; and … (b) any other document, or any article or record, specified in the notice, relating to employees of the employer or to such insurance". Failure without reasonable excuse is an offence: under s. 45C(2)(a), where it relates to the limb (a) material, "on conviction upon indictment to a fine at level 6 and to imprisonment for 2 years" and on summary conviction a fine at level 6 and one year; under s. 45C(2)(b), where it relates to limb (b) material, a fine at level 5. Section 45C(4) makes hindering or impeding the Commissioner's inspection a further level 5 offence. Where a s. 44A request is ignored, that is the route with criminal consequences attached.

One more line worth knowing: the premium cannot come out of your pay. Section 47, headed "Deduction of insurance premiums from earnings to be an offence", subsection (1): an employer who, "for the purpose of defraying or partly defraying the cost of insurance in respect of his liability to pay compensation under the provisions of this Ordinance, makes any deduction from the earnings of an employee in his employ, shall be guilty of an offence and shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine at level 3 and to imprisonment for 6 months". Section 47(2) adds a repayment power: a convicted employer must, "in addition to any penalty imposed under that subsection, if the court or magistrate before which the conviction was obtained so orders", pay the employee any sum deducted "(a) in respect of which the offence was committed; and (b) which has not at the time of the conviction been repaid". So this is not merely improper — it is an imprisonable offence, and the court can order the money back.

The company was wound up — is the parent on the hook? (s. 44B)

Where the employer is a subsidiary inside a group that insures on a single group policy, the Ordinance supplies a second debtor. Section 44B, headed "Holding company responsible for liability of subsidiary in certain cases", subsection (1): where "(a) in relation to an employee there is in force a policy of insurance taken out by a group of companies pursuant to section 40(1C); (b) the employee’s employer, being a subsidiary of a holding company which is also insured under the policy, becomes liable to pay any amount of compensation or damages in respect of an injury to the employee by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment; and (c) the employee is unable to recover payment of the amount or any part thereof from the employer or from the insurer, the holding company is liable to pay the amount or part thereof to the employee".

Do not know which company is the holding company? Again, a written request — seven days. Section 44B(2) lets an employee of such a subsidiary "issue a written request to the subsidiary to supply to the employee the names and addresses of all its holding companies which are also insured under the policy", and s. 44B(3) requires the subsidiary within 7 days of the date of issue of that request to supply them and to deliver a copy of the request to the holding companies. A subsidiary which without reasonable excuse fails to comply "commits an offence and is liable to a fine at level 3" (s. 44B(4)).

All three of the section's preconditions have to hold: a s. 40(1C) group policy, a holding-company/subsidiary relationship insured under that policy, and the employee being unable to recover from employer or insurer. Having a parent company does not by itself engage it.

The insurer's representative arrives with a cheque and a release form. Can you sign?

The Ordinance anticipated that scene: an agreement giving up the statutory compensation is void.

Section 31, headed "Contracting out", subsection (1): "Any contract or agreement whether made before or after the commencement of this Ordinance, whereby an employee relinquishes any right to compensation from an employer for personal injury by accident arising out of and in the course of his employment, shall, subject to subsection (2), be null and void in so far as it purports to remove or reduce the liability of any person to pay compensation under the provisions of this Ordinance." The exception in subsection (2) is narrow: only where the Commissioner is satisfied that "by reason of old age or serious physical defect or infirmity" a person is specially liable to meet with an accident or to sustain injury may he authorise that person and the employer to agree in writing to reduce or give up the right to compensation for an accident caused or contributed to by that condition — and s. 31(3) provides that such an agreement "shall be ineffective unless the Commissioner certifies that in his opinion such agreement is fair and reasonable".

The s. 16CA settlement-by-agreement route is far narrower than most people assume — and it is not the Ordinance's only one: s. 8 provides a separate agreement route for compensation for attendant care (s. 18A(1)(a) lists both). Section 16CA(1) applies only where a claim arises from an accident causing injury that results in temporary incapacity, total or partial, "for a period exceeding 3 days but not exceeding 7 days", and then only as to the compensation payable by the employer "under section 10(1)". Once the sick leave runs past 7 days — or the case involves permanent incapacity, medical expenses or death — s. 16CA has nothing to say.

Even a signed agreement can be undone. Section 16CB(1) lets the Commissioner, on the application of either party, cancel a s. 16CA agreement where he is satisfied that "the sum paid or to be paid was or is not in accordance with the provisions of this Ordinance"; or that "the agreement was entered into in ignorance of, or under a mistake as to, the true nature or extent of the injury"; or that it "was obtained by such fraud, undue influence, misrepresentation or other improper means as would, in law, be sufficient ground for avoiding it". The application must be made within 6 months of the agreement "or within such further time as the Commissioner in the circumstances of any particular case thinks fit" (s. 16CB(2)); on cancellation the Commissioner assesses the s. 10 compensation under s. 16A (s. 16CB(3)).

The insurer has a vote of its own — and s. 43(2) actually has five limbs. It opens "No sum shall be payable by an insurer under this section—" and then runs (a) to (e):

• (a) — an agreed sum needs the insurer's consent. No sum is payable "unless, in the case of compensation agreed upon between the employer and an employee under section 16CA, such insurer has consented to pay the sum agreed upon as compensation to the employee" — so an agreement the employer signs without the insurer's consent can leave the insurer off the hook; that removes only the insurer's s. 43 obligation, it does not extinguish the employer's own obligation under the s. 16CA agreement.
• (b) — litigation has to be notified early enough. Where compensation or damages are "determined or adjudged by a court or tribunal to be payable", no sum is payable unless "the insurer had sufficient notice of the institution in the court or tribunal of proceedings for compensation or damages, as the case may be, to enable such insurer to be added as a party to the proceedings". (Section 43(3) then provides that on such notice and application the court "shall … add the insurer as a party and the insurer shall have the same right to defend the proceedings as if such insurer were the employer".)
• (c) — while enforcement is stayed. No sum is payable "in respect of any judgment to pay compensation or damages, while execution thereon is stayed by the court or pending appeal".
• (d) — the policy was cancelled before the accident. No sum is payable "if before the happening of the accident which was the cause of the injury giving rise to the liability, the policy of insurance was cancelled by mutual consent or by virtue of any provision contained therein".
• (e) — the excess over the cover. No sum is payable "in respect of the sum liable to be paid under subsection (1) in excess of the available amount covered by the policy of insurance" — the same ceiling as ss. 42(1) and (1A) above.

When an insurer actually declines, limb (a) is rarely the whole story. In litigated cases the limb most often in play is (b) — whether the insurer was given enough notice of the proceedings to be added as a party.

Relationship with common-law negligence claims

The ECO pays a sum computed by formula. A common-law claim aims to put you back where you were. Both routes can run, but you cannot be paid twice.

ECO compensation is the statutory minimum — regardless of employer fault. Where the employer is at fault (failing to provide safety equipment, breaching workplace safety regulations, negligent training), the employee may also bring a common-law negligence claim.

That is not practice — it is preserved by the Ordinance in terms. Section 26, headed "Remedies independently of Ordinance against employer", subsection (1):

Common-law damages are typically higher than ECO compensation, covering:

• Pain and suffering
• Future loss of earnings — without the ECO's statutory earnings caps
• Care and assistance costs
• Loss of amenities of life
• Others

Those heads are common-law damages principles, not provisions of Cap. 282. The Ordinance prescribes only the statutory heads tabulated above; the content and computation of common-law damages come from case law.

But common-law negligence requires proof of the employer's fault — which the ECO claim does not. Common fault scenarios: a construction site without safety harnesses, no guard rails, inadequately maintained machinery, unsafe work processes.

Coordination of the two claims. An employee may pursue ECO compensation and a common-law negligence claim concurrently. Any eventual common-law damages are reduced by the ECO compensation already received (to avoid double recovery) — the proviso quoted above requires deduction of "any compensation which has been paid or is payable". Note the words "or is payable": compensation that is fixed but not yet in hand is deducted too.

Section 26 also deals with taking the wrong route. Where an action for damages independently of the Ordinance is brought within the s. 14(1) time limit, and the court determines that the employer is not liable in that action but would have been liable to pay compensation under the Ordinance, "the action shall be dismissed" — but the trial court, if the plaintiff so chooses, "shall … proceed to assess such compensation", and may deduct from it the costs caused by suing instead of proceeding under the Ordinance (s. 26(2)). Section 26(4) lets the court, when assessing compensation that way, "include in the sum awarded interest at such rate as it thinks fit" for all or part of the period between the accident and the certificate.

What if the employee was partly at fault? Section 26(3) wires in a second Ordinance. Where the action determines that "damages are recoverable independently of this Ordinance subject to such reduction as is mentioned in section 21(1) of the Law Amendment and Reform (Consolidation) Ordinance (Cap. 23)" and the employer would have been liable to pay compensation, "subsection (2) shall apply in all respects as if the action had been dismissed". The subsection does not stop there, and the tail is the sting: "and, if the plaintiff chooses to have compensation assessed and awarded in accordance with the said subsection (2), no damages shall be recoverable in the said action." So s. 26(3) is not merely a cross-reference to subsection (2): electing to take the compensation assessment in that action closes off damages in it. It is a choice between the two, not both. Cap. 23 s. 21 is headed "Apportionment of liability in case of contributory negligence", and s. 21(1) provides that where a person suffers damage "as the result partly of his own fault and partly of the fault of any other person or persons, a claim in respect of that damage shall not be defeated by reason of the fault of the person suffering the damage, but the damages recoverable in respect thereof shall be reduced to such extent as the court thinks just and equitable having regard to the claimant’s share in the responsibility for the damage".

A terminology note. The authentic Chinese term in Hong Kong legislation is 共分疏忽, not the 共同疏忽 often seen in circulation. (In the Law Amendment and Reform (Consolidation) Ordinance (Cap. 23), version in force 15 February 2017, 共分疏忽 occurs twice and 共同疏忽 not at all.) And this reduction lives only on the common-law route. The statutory compensation in Cap. 282 is not scaled down for the employee's own carelessness — the Ordinance contains no proportionate, contributory-negligence-style reduction at all.

But do not turn that into "ss. 5(2) and 5(3) are the Ordinance's only exits on employee conduct". Those two are the main all-or-nothing exclusions, but at least five further provisions, scattered through the Ordinance, switch off compensation or a particular liability because of something the employee did or failed to do: s. 25(3)(i) (recovering damages from a third party without first notifying the employer in writing — "no compensation shall be payable"); s. 32(1)(b) (representing in writing on entering the employment, wilfully and with intent to deceive, that he had not previously suffered from the disease — "compensation shall not be payable"); ss. 10A(4)(b) and 10AA(2)(d) (where the employer has given a written undertaking of adequate free treatment and the employee "fails, without reasonable excuse, to submit himself for such medical treatment" — no medical expenses); s. 36B(2)(a) (no prosthesis liability unless "the employee submits himself to treatment by a registered medical practitioner, a registered Chinese medicine practitioner or a registered dentist"); and s. 11(7B) (an employee who does not supply the information about concurrent contracts loses the s. 11(7) aggregation of earnings). None of these scales anything down — each switches a whole item off. "No proportionate reduction" and "employee conduct is irrelevant to statutory compensation" are two different statements, and the first does not imply the second.

When the person who injured you is not the employer but a third party (s. 25) — one unsent letter can reduce the compensation to nothing

Section 26 above deals with suing the employer. Where someone other than the employer is also liable — the driver who hit you, another company on the site, a machinery supplier, an occupier — the governing section is s. 25. It contains a trap that is easy to walk into.

Section 25, headed "Remedies against both employer and third party", subsection (1)(a) allows the employee to "both claim compensation under this Ordinance and take proceedings against the third party" in the Court of First Instance or the District Court to recover damages, provided that the court trying the action "shall, in awarding damages, have regard to the amount which, by virtue of paragraph (b), has become or is likely to become payable to the employer by the third party". Subsection (1)(b) gives the employer — and anyone who may be called upon to pay an indemnity under s. 24 where the employee works for a sub-contractor — a direct right of action against the third party, exercisable "either by joining in an action begun by the employee against the third party or by instituting separate proceedings", capped at the damages the court considers "would have been awarded to the employee but for the provisions of this Ordinance".

The trap is in subsections (2) and (3). Section 25(2): "An employee shall, before instituting proceedings for damages under subsection (1), in writing notify the employer of his intention to do so and shall likewise notify the employer if he decides to abandon such proceedings or to relinquish or settle his claim for damages, and shall in connection with any such notification furnish such particulars as the employer may require."

Section 25(3) states what follows from not doing so. Where an employee has (a) "failed to notify the employer of his intention to institute proceedings under subsection (1)", or (b) "failed to furnish such particulars as the employer may require", and then recovers damages from a third party: "(i) where the amount of damages recovered is equal to or greater than the amount of compensation which would, but for this subsection, be payable, no compensation shall be payable"; or (ii) where the damages are less, the compensation is cut to the difference between the two. Section 25(4) lets the court order repayment of compensation already paid.

In plain terms: bring proceedings against a third party without first writing to your employer, and then recover damages in those proceedings, and you can lose the employees' compensation altogether — and be ordered to give back what you have had. (The statutory trigger is damages recovered "in any such proceedings" — a purely private settlement or cashed cheque without proceedings is not, on the subsection's own words, what this covers.) That is not a discretion; it is what the subsection says. Avoiding it costs one letter.

(The other direction: s. 25(5) gives the employer, or a person who may be called upon to indemnify under s. 24, a cushion — where written notice of intention to sue under s. 25(1)(b) went to the third party within 12 months of receipt of due notice of the accident, those proceedings do not lapse or become time-barred until 3 months after the compensation claim is determined by a s. 16A certificate, settled by a s. 16CA agreement, determined by a Certificate of Compensation Assessment for Fatal Case, or finally determined by a court. Section 25(6) requires the employer, where s. 24 applies, to pass the employee's notice on to the principal-contractor side.)

How long does the common-law route give you?

The 24 months in Cap. 282 governs only the statutory compensation. The limitation period for a negligence action is not in Cap. 282 at all — it is in the Limitation Ordinance (Cap. 347).

• The base period is 3 years, but not simply from the accident. Section 27, headed "Time limit for personal injuries", subsection (4): "Except where subsection (5) applies, the said period is 3 years from— (a) the date on which the cause of action accrued; or (b) the date (if later) of the plaintiff’s knowledge." Whichever is later — which is why occupational disease and gradual-onset injury, where the harm is not apparent on the day, are not necessarily counted from the accident.
• "Date of knowledge" is defined. Section 27(6) lists four facts: that the injury "was significant"; that it "was attributable in whole or in part to the act or omission which is alleged to constitute negligence, nuisance or breach of duty"; the identity of the defendant; and, where the act or omission is alleged to be someone else's, that person's identity and the additional facts supporting the action. The subsection closes by making legal characterisation irrelevant: "knowledge that any acts or omissions did or did not, as a matter of law, involve negligence, nuisance or breach of duty is irrelevant." Section 27(7) makes an injury "significant" if the plaintiff "would reasonably have considered it sufficiently serious to justify his instituting proceedings" against a solvent, non-contesting defendant, and s. 27(8) extends knowledge to what could reasonably have been acquired from observable facts or "with the help of medical or other appropriate expert advice which it is reasonable for him to seek". The closing half of that same subsection runs the claimant's way, and is rarely quoted: "but a person shall not be fixed under this subsection with knowledge of a fact ascertainable only with the help of expert advice so long as he has taken all reasonable steps to obtain (and, where appropriate, to act on) that advice." Take the reasonable steps to get expert advice, and act on it where appropriate, and you are not deemed to have known what only that advice would have revealed.
• The whole of s. 27 is "Subject to section 30". Section 27(3) opens: "Subject to section 30, an action to which this section applies shall not be brought after the expiration of the period specified in subsections (4) and (5)." Section 30, headed "Court’s power to override time limits", subsection (1) lets the court, having weighed how far "the provisions of section 27 or 28 prejudice the plaintiff or any person whom he represents" and how far its own decision "would prejudice the defendant or any person whom he represents", direct that those provisions "shall not apply to the action, or shall not apply to any specified cause of action to which the action relates", if "it would be equitable to allow an action to proceed". Section 30(3) then lists what the court must consider: the length of and reasons for the delay; how far the evidence has become less cogent because of it; the defendant's conduct after the cause of action arose, including responses to reasonable requests for information; "the duration of any disability of the plaintiff arising after the date of the accrual of the cause of action"; how promptly and reasonably the plaintiff acted once he knew; and what steps he took to get medical, legal or other expert advice.
• Disability extends it, subject to two provisos. Section 22(1) requires the disability to exist on the date the right of action accrued: "If on the date when any right of action accrued for which a period of limitation is prescribed by this Ordinance, the person to whom it accrued was under a disability, the action may be brought at any time before the expiration of 6 years from the date when the person ceased to be under a disability or died, whichever event first occurred, notwithstanding that the period of limitation had expired". Section 22(2) then narrows that for personal injury: for an action to which s. 27 or s. 28(3) applies, subsection (1) "shall have effect as if for the words “6 years” there were substituted the words “3 years”". Section 22(3) deems a person to be under a disability "while he is an infant or of unsound mind". And s. 22(1) closes with provisos: (a) "this section shall not affect any case where the right of action first accrued to some person (not under a disability) through whom the person under a disability claims"; and (b) where a right of action that accrued to a person under a disability passes on his death, still under disability, to another person under disability, "no further extension of time shall be allowed by reason of the disability of the second person" — no stacking. A disability that arises after the cause of action accrued does not engage s. 22 at all; it is only one of the s. 30(3) factors.
• If the injured person dies first, the estate's surviving action runs on s. 27(5) — not s. 28. The quotation of s. 27(4) above opens "Except where subsection (5) applies", and this is subsection (5): "If the person injured dies before the expiration of the period in subsection (4), the period as respects the cause of action surviving for the benefit of the estate of the deceased by virtue of section 20 of the Law Amendment and Reform (Consolidation) Ordinance (Cap. 23) shall be 3 years from— (a) the date of death; or (b) the date of the personal representative’s knowledge, whichever is the later." Where there is more than one personal representative the governing provision is s. 27(10), not s. 27(6): "If there is more than one personal representative, and their dates of knowledge are different, subsection (5)(b) shall be read as referring to the earliest of those dates." Note the condition the subsection sets for itself — differing dates of knowledge — and then the earliest governs, so the first of the representatives to know pulls the whole start date back. (Section 27(9) also widens "personal representative" to "any person who is or has been a personal representative of the deceased, including an executor who has not proved the will".)
• Section 28 governs a different action: the family's claim under the Fatal Accidents Ordinance (Cap. 22). Its heading says so — "Time limit for actions under Fatal Accidents Ordinance". Section 28(3): "An action under the Fatal Accidents Ordinance (Cap. 22) shall not be brought after the expiration of 3 years from— (a) the date of death; or (b) the date of knowledge of the person for whose benefit the action is brought, whichever is the later", and s. 28(1) states that "This section has effect subject to section 30." But s. 28(2) is a gate: no Cap. 22 action may be brought "if the death occurred when the person injured could no longer maintain an action and recover damages in respect of the injury (whether because of a time limit in this Ordinance or in any other Ordinance, or any other reason)"; and where the injured person's own action would have been barred by the s. 27 time limit, "no account shall be taken of the possibility of that time limit being overridden under section 30". Section 30(2) restricts the court in the same direction: it "shall not under this section disapply section 28(2) except where the reason why the person injured could no longer maintain an action was because of the time limit in section 27". So the estate's three years and the family's three years run off different dates, different people, and different exposure to the s. 30 override.
• Where there is more than one dependant, limitation is applied to each of them separately — s. 29. Section 29(1) applies the section "where there is more than one person for whose benefit an action under the Fatal Accidents Ordinance (Cap. 22) is brought". Section 29(2): "Section 28(3)(b) shall be applied separately to each of them, and if that would debar one or more of them, but not all, the court shall direct that any person who would be so debarred shall be excluded from those for whom the action is brought unless it is shown that if the action were brought exclusively for the benefit of that person it would not be defeated by a defence of limitation (whether in consequence of section 22, or an agreement between the parties not to raise the defence, or otherwise)." In plain terms: one time-barred dependant does not sink the whole action — that dependant is excluded from it. The provision bites where the family members' dates of knowledge differ.

This site's reading: most work-injury writing says "three years" and stops. The real shape of the provision is four-layered: 3 years (s. 27(4)) → from accrual or knowledge, whichever is later (s. 27(4)(b)) → extended for disability (s. 22(2)) → and the court can override the whole thing anyway (s. 30). Miss any layer and a claim that is still alive gets written off as time-barred. (Death cases fork again: the estate's surviving action runs on s. 27(5), the family's Fatal Accidents Ordinance (Cap. 22) action on s. 28, and the s. 30 override reaches the latter only within the limit s. 30(2) sets.) But the point cuts the other way too: s. 30 is a discretion, not a right. Past three years you are asking a court's indulgence, not exercising an entitlement — and s. 30(3) will examine how long you waited and why. Treat "three years" as the line to act by, not as a safety net.

This site's reading (ss. 5(1) and 26(1) read together): these two provisions draw the central line. Section 5(1) asks only whether the injury was one "arising out of and in the course of the employment", not whether anyone was negligent — that is the no-fault scheme. Section 26(1) expressly preserves the other route, at the price of having the employees' compensation deducted from the damages.

For serious cases where a common-law negligence claim is plausible, early consultation with a solicitor experienced in work injury litigation is important to assess whether to pursue both.

In past cases, courts hearing employees' compensation claims have generally focused on whether the injury was one "arising out of and in the course of the employment" — the connection between the time and place of the accident and the work, whether what the employee was doing fell within the scope of the employment, and the causal link between the injury and the accident, with the last of these usually turning heavily on medical evidence and expert reports. (That describes judicial practice, not the text of the Ordinance; the Ordinance itself sets the s. 5(1) threshold and the s. 5(4) deeming rules.)

Related guides: see also real cases: work-injury compensation , traffic accident claims , slip-and-fall and public liability claims , and severance pay and long service payment , or browse our Hong Kong personal injury overview .