Australian woman injured during motel sex awarded compensation The Federal Court rejected the employer's claim that the woman's tryst with a male friend had no connection with her job and ruled that - whether she spent her evenings having sex or "playing a game of cards" - she was still at work. The woman's nose and mouth were injured when, during sex, a glass light fitting was torn from its mount above the bed and landed on her face. The courts have ruled that it was not relevant whether the woman or the man dislodged the light. The woman, who worked for a federal government agency, was treated in hospital for her injuries and later suffered depression and was unable to work. The incident occurred during a work trip in 2007 to the coastal town of Nowra, south of Sydney, and has prompted a series of legal actions and appeals. The government booked the motel and the woman met a friend there for dinner after work before they retired to her room. An earlier tribunal ruled that the government could not have anticipated the woman's conduct and that sexual activity - unlike showering, sleeping or eating - was "not an ordinary incident of an overnight stay." That decision was overturned by a single judge, whose ruling has now been affirmed by the court's full bench. The judges ruled the woman engaged in "lawful sexual activity" and she should not be punished for it. "If the applicant had been injured while playing a game of cards in her motel room she would be entitled to compensation even though it could not be said that her employer induced or encouraged her to engage in such an activity," the judges said. The woman, who was in her late 30s when the injury occurred, cannot be identified for legal reasons. The amount of compensation has not yet been decided.