Kentucky: Injury Sustained in Pre-Employment Physical Not Compensable

Where a clerical worker sustained injuries during a pre-employment physical examination at a medical center, she could not recover workers’ compensation benefits because she was not an employee at the time of her injury, held the Supreme Court of Kentucky. That she actually passed the required physical examination and was hired for the position did not alter the fact that her injury pre-dated the employment. The Court reasoned that the worker could prevail only if she could show one of two things: (a) that she was employed at the time of the examination, or (b) that the examination conferred some sort of benefit to the medical center. Nothing in the record indicated she was an employee at the time of the examination. She received confirmation after the exam and began work some several weeks later. The court added that the exam could not be construed to come within the definition of “work” in furtherance of the medical center’s business. It was of no consequence to the medical center whether she completed the examination or not.

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 Rahla v. Medical Ctr. at Bowling Green, 2016 Ky. LEXIS 103 (Mar. 17, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 26.02.

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

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