Workers Compensation
| Workers' Compensation & SSDI |
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| > Compensability More... |
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| Traveling To and From Work |
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| Employees do not only suffer injuries while actively in the service of their employer. Some injuries occur outside working hours while the employee is traveling to or from work. Workers' compensation for such injuries may be recovered only if they occur on the employer's premises. The employer's "premises" is not just that area in which the employee normally works or where the majority of work performed for the employer takes place. Rather, "premises" encompasses the entire grounds of the employer including all buildings and structures thereon as well as parking lots. Generally, compensation will be denied if the employee was injured elsewhere. Additionally, this "going and coming" rule for compensability is only applicable when the employee has established working hours and a set working location. More... |
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| Pre-Employment Injuries |
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| Generally, compensation will be denied for injuries incurred prior to an employee being actually hired. However, courts have tended to reject form over substance and allowed compensation when the employee was hired though he had not finished the full hiring process such as completing the employer's business paperwork like payroll and tax forms. Compensation turns on whether a contract of hire has been entered into between the employer and potential employee -- an express or implied contract will suffice. More... |
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| Employee Susceptibility to Occupational Disease |
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| Every employee brings his own idiosyncrasies to his employment. This includes pre-existing weaknesses, hypersensitivities, and other susceptibilities that could impact the employee's health. The minority rule in workers' compensation coverage is that there is no recovery for an occupational disease where a pre-existing condition, such as asthma, contributed to the resulting disease. The minority states consider the disease to be the result of the employee's own innate susceptibility rather than to the peculiar conditions of his employment. More... |
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| Uninsured Contractor |
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| Some employers may seek to avoid workers' compensation liability by using contractors to perform work that would normally be performed by the employer's own employees. The reasoning is that employers are responsible only for the workers' compensation coverage of "employees." However, to preclude employers from evading liability by this method, most jurisdictions will impose liability here if the contractor itself is uninsured for workers' compensation. Thus, if an employer utilizes a contractor's employees to do that which the employer's own employees would normally do, and an employee of the contractor is injured, the employer will be responsible for worker's compensation despite the fact that the injured individual is not an "employee" of the employer. These state statutes basically deem the individual an "employee" to further the goals and purpose of workers' compensation. In order to determine whether the contractor is performing work that would normally be done by the employer's own employees, courts will look to the employer's past practices as well as the practices of other employers in the same industry or trade. More... |
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