Nebraska: Claimant Fails to Prove “Increased-Risk” of Injury Associated With Idiopathic Fall

Citing Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the Supreme Court of Nebraska acknowledged that a vast majority of courts nationally had adopted the so-called, increased-risk rule, under which the effects of an idiopathic-caused fall are compensable if the employment places the employee in a position increasing the dangerous effects of such a fall, the Court said it need not consider that question since the injured worker had fail to raise the issue before the compensation court below. In attempting to prove his claim, the worker concentrated on attempting to prove that he had slipped while in the employer’s premises, sustaining injuries in his fall. The trial court ruled that he fell to the floor after suffering a syncope event unrelated to his work. The high court said there was no evidence in the record that the worker’s injuries were caused or aggravated by a hazard of employment. The trial court, therefore, did not commit plain error by not applying the increased-danger rule. 

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the 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 Maroulakos v. Walmart Assocs., 300 Neb. 589, 2018 Neb. LEXIS 130 (July 20, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 9.01.

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