You’re climbing a ladder at work when you slip and fall. You suffer a serious injury when you hit the ground. Perhaps you have a spinal cord injury or a traumatic brain injury. It is going to keep you out of work for a significant amount of time.
You want to seek workers’ comp benefits, but your boss tells you that you can’t get any compensation because the injury was your own fault. You were the one who slipped and fell. If you had simply climbed the ladder safely, you would never have been injured. Since you were at fault, your boss believes workers’ comp benefits are off the table. Is this true?
The fault usually doesn’t matter
No, this likely is not true. In the majority of cases, it doesn’t matter who was at fault in a workplace accident.
There are some limited exceptions, such as if workers are intentionally acting dangerously or trying to work while they are under the influence of alcohol or drugs. But unless there is some egregious type of negligence or dangerous intentional action, the workers’ comp claim won’t be considered fault. It’s a no-fault system and almost everyone who gets hurt on the job deserves benefits simply because they got injured at work.
Additionally, just because your boss says that the accident was your fault doesn’t mean that’s true. Maybe the ladder was in poor repair or hadn’t been maintained. Maybe it was the wrong type of ladder for the job. Perhaps it was set up incorrectly by another worker or by your boss, directly causing your accident.
It’s important not to forgo the benefits that you deserve. Make sure you understand all of your legal rights if you’ve been injured on the job.