The cost of caring for pets can be covered by motor injury benefits, the NSW Supreme Court has ruled, in a case likely to set a legal precedent. 

Such tasks can be considered “attendant care services”, a judge says. 

The decision signals a broader interpretation of care expenses under the state’s Motor Accidents Injuries Act and could have an impact on claims handling and cost management, according to Moray & Agnew partner Erin Woodward.  

The case reached the court when NRMA Insurance sought a review of a NSW Personal Injury Commission ruling stating pet care services fell within the statutory benefits scheme. 

The court heard Liton Chowdhury had a motorbike accident in November last year, spent five weeks in hospital and could not perform weight-bearing activities for some time. 

He claimed against NRMA Insurance as the compulsory third party insurer of the other vehicle involved in the crash, but the company rejected his bid for the cost of feeding and changing litter for his three cats. 

The insurer argued pet care was not an attendant care service under the legislation. 

In dismissing NRMA Insurance’s appeal, Judge Richard McHugh says attendant care services provide injured people help with everyday tasks, including in the home. 

He says that given how many people have pets, “it is difficult to resist the conclusion that the services of feeding and watering domestic cats and changing their litter are, as a matter of ordinary English meaning, domestic services. They serve the ordinary household purpose of attending to the basic needs of a domestic pet.” 

Judge McHugh notes this may be used as a test case and has clarified that it relates to the care of pets, and not to therapy animals. 

Read the judgment here.