Chapter 24

Employee Injuries

Historically, how has our Legal System Treated Injured Employees?

• Negligence Suits a suit, brought by an employee against an employer, that claims the employer’s carelessness caused the employee’s injury– common-law defense in a negligence suit, an injured

employee’s not being able to collect from the employer if the employee had “assumed the risk” involved, the employee was “contributorily negligent”, or the “negligence of a co-worker” caused the injury

– Assumption of the risk occurs when a person is aware of a danger that could cause injury, but voluntarily remains in the dangerous situation

– Contributory Negligence the employee carelessly did something that contributed to her or his injury or death

– Co-worker negligence means that a co-worker is one of the causes of the injury

• Workers Compensation – Worker’s compensation statutes laws requiring

most employers to obtain insurance to pay benefits to injured employees

• Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) the federal agency that enacts safety regulation, inspects work places, imposes fines, and even shuts down plants when it finds violations of its laws

How do Workers’ Compensation Laws Work?

• Recovery under workers’ compensation insurance– vocational rehabilitation training for another type of job

• The coverage of workers’ compensation laws– casual workers those who do not work regularly for one

employer– independent contractor someone hired to accomplish a

task that is not supervised while doing so

• Winning a workers’ compensation award

When can the Injured Employee Recover from the Employer for Negligence?

• When the employer fails to provide the required workers’ compensation insurance

• When the employee is not required to be covered

• When the injury is not covered by workers’ compensation

• When the employer commits an intentional tort

How does OSHA Protect Employees?

• The general duty clause

• Specific regulations

• Workplace inspection

• Dealing with OSHA violations