Accidents happen all the time. In the workplace, we have
car accidents, machine accidents,
slips and falls, and countless other types of accidents. In many cases, a workplace accident
is traced back to a worker’s error, whether it was the injured worker
themselves, a co-worker, a third-party contractor, or even the injured
worker’s employer. The truth is that a large percentage of workplace
accidents are preventable and based on human error. Sometimes, a worker’s
own negligence leads to an on-the-job injury.
Suppose a worker accidentally gets injured in a workplace accident because
of his or her own negligence, and this is clearly documented. Everybody
in the office, on the floor, or at the job site knows the worker was to
blame for their own injury. Does this mean that he or she is not entitled
to workers’ compensation benefits?
Workers’ Comp is a No-Fault System
“In a
workers’ compensation case, no one party is determined to be at fault. The amount that a claimant
receives is not decreased by his/her carelessness, nor increased by an
employer’s fault,” according to the
New York State Workers’ Compensation Board. But there are exceptions to this rule. A worker loses his or her right
to receive
workers’ compensation benefits if the injury occurred because he or she was under the influence of drugs
or alcohol, or because the worker was trying to injure himself or someone else.
For example, let’s say that “John,” a factory worker
started a fight with “Rob,” a co-worker, over a dispute the
pair had going for a couple of months. However, John had no idea that
Rob was trained in mixed martial arts and out of self-defense, Rob ended
up breaking John’s arms and he was unable to work until they healed.
When the managers at the plant watched surveillance video, it was clear
that John started the fight and that Rob had no choice but to defend himself.
Since John started the fight, his workers’ compensation claim was
denied. Now, if John had accidentally hurt himself on-the-job because he was careless,
not because he was trying to hurt anybody, and he was unable to work for
a few months, he probably wouldn’t have any problem collecting workers’
compensation benefits.
If you were injured on the job and you cannot work because of your injury,
you should be covered by workers’ compensation as long as you were
not impaired by drugs or alcohol at the time of the accident and you were
not intentionally trying to hurt yourself or someone else at the time
of the incident.
To file a workers’ compensation claim in New York,
contact Katz, Leidman, Freund & Herman at (888) 250-5427 for a
FREE consultation.