Georgia: “Controlled Descent” Goes Out of Control; Board Should Have Made Fact Findings as to Worker’s Rashness

In Georgia, violation of express instructions or the mere doing of a hazardous act in which the danger is obvious does not constitute willful misconduct that disqualifies an injured employee from an award of benefits; the employer must also show that the intentional act was done either with the knowledge that it was likely to result in serious injury, or with the wanton and reckless disregard of its probable consequences. Accordingly, where a cell-phone tower employee sustained serious injuries attempting a “controlled descent” from a tower, the fact that a supervisor ordered him not to attempt the descent, but rather to climb down, there was still an issue as to whether the employee’s actions were sufficiently rash so as to cause a loss of benefits. Since the state Board had not made factual findings on that issue, the court remanded the case for further findings.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Telecom v. Burdette, 2017 Ga. LEXIS 103 (Feb. 27, 2017)

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

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see