Terminating Employee on Worker's Compensation

Bellywasher

I need advice. We have an employee who was injured as a result of a safety violation and is on worker's compesation. Can this employee be terminated for failing to adhere to safety rules?

Michael Adams

Workers' compensation laws vary from state to state so I would recommend that
you obtain the proper legal advice concerning the laws in your state.
Generally speaking, depending on the employee's specific safety violation,
the workers' compensation claim may not be compensable. Even if the
employer/carrier has deemed the accident compensable, the further employment
status of the worker may be dictated by the employer's internal policies on
safety practices and procedures. Again, I recommend that you seek legal
advice, since this issue is often litigate.

Michael H. Adams
Editor
On Workers' Compensation

Theresa Gegen TX

In Texas, an employee can be disciplined for failing to follow safety rules, even if the failure resulted in a workplace injury and workers' compensation claim. However, terminating and/or disciplining an employee in this situation is risky. That is because an employee can sue for workers' compensation retaliation (that is, the employee will say "you didn't fire me because I engaged in unsafe activity, you fired me because I filed a workers' compensation claim).

So before imposing any type of discipline on the employee, I would review the situation very throughly with an employment law attorney. The attorney will want to know the fact surrounding this incident, and how other incidents have been treated in the past (have you consistantly applied your company policies). Also, the attorney will want to know what type of training the employee had in regards to correct safety procedures.

Depending on how serious the safety violation was, the company may decide, based on the risks, to impose a lesser discipline than termination (for example a written warning and retraining).

Good Luck.