Delaware: Running Inside Employer’s Facility Results in Denial of Injury Claim

As is the case in a number of other states, Delaware’s Workers’ Compensation Act bars recovery of benefits if the employee’s injury results from “the employee’s deliberate and reckless indifference to danger” [19 Del. C. § 2353(b)]. A Delaware appellate court affirmed a decision by the state Board that denied benefits to an employee who sustained injuries while running inside the employer’s facility in spite of several warnings not to do so. Referencing the rule described in Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 34.02, the court said the Board had found the employee’s actions had not been “instinctive” or merely “thoughtless,” but much more reckless. The employee had been disciplined for running inside the plant back in 2012. Other evidence established that the employer had regular safety meetings and stressed that running was not only dangerous; it was prohibited.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law(LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Pierre v. Perdue Farms, 2021 Del. Super. LEXIS 544 (Aug. 12, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, §§ 34.01, 90.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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