Workers Comp or Not?
Dfox
39 Posts
We had a holiday event offsite during an extended lunch. During this event employees were playing musical chairs, and two of them were injured. One hurt his leg and the other the back. Would this be covered under Workers' Comp?
Comments
What I have experienced dealing with WC is this. Even if an accident occurred on the employers property it is not automatically WC. The accident has to be related to a job function. Example: If an individual is walking across the floor and simply trips over his own feet would that automatically qualify him for WC just because he was at work? Not necessarily. If the floor was wet and it is a safety issue then yes. If he was carrying and object and lost balance because of the object then maybe yes. If the person was just clumsy, fell and was not performing a job function that contributed to the injury then it probably is not covered. Granted it can be very tricky.
Here in VA we have a presumptive illness that covers emergency workers that have a heart problem. I had chest pain at the station. I was relaxed, not on a call, not performing a training exercise. I went to the hospital was admitted and released the next day. Of course I filed a WC claim. . yes with the proper wording to make it job related (presumptive illness). Guess what, it was denied. Why? I was simply at work and not performing a work related activity.
Just food for thought.
cappy - VA has some very unique wording in their WC laws. I have worked on VA WC claims before. I have seen many be denied for different reasons. Case in point - someone came to me saying she hurt her shoulder doing her job (repetitive motion job). She could not tell me exactly when it happened, just that it started hurting when she was doing her job. The claim was denied. VA WC says that for repetitive motion type injuries that unless you can pinpoint an exact time and situation of when the injury occurred that the case is denied. The ee can not prove that the injury happened at work. They could have hurt their shoulder lifting a box at home (but didn't feel any pain until she came to work and starting doing the repetitive motion tasks of her job).
cappy - VA has some very unique wording in their WC laws. I have worked on VA WC claims before. I have seen many be denied for different reasons.[/quote]
You are sure right about that! I think that is why I seem a little on the fringe side with others because of the differences in Virginia especially with California. Claim pay outs for repetitive injuries have eased ever so slightly but it is still an uphill battle war to get them accepted by the WC board.
I was interested in what TXHR was saying as it related to team building. That defense has been used in VA. but it generally would not fly under the circumstances presented by the original poster. I can see how in other localities that it could become an issue.