Nevada: Stroke Victim May Not Sue Employer for Delay in Seeking Medical Treatment

The Supreme Court of Nevada, reversing a decision of the state’s court of appeals, held that a Las Vegas casino employee could not maintain a civil action against his employer to recover damages for its alleged delay in seeking medical treatment following his suffering of a stroke just prior to the beginning of his work shift; his alleged additionalinjuries arose out of and in the course of his employment and his suit, therefore, was barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of the Nevada Industrial Insurance Act. Evidence suggested that two co-employees took the employee to his home and helped get him comfortable, but they left him there alone for two days until the employee’s girlfriend came to check on him. There was evidence that if the employee had received certain blood-clot-busting medications within three hours of his stoke, his complications from the stroke would have been negligible, or at least significantly less than they were, due to the two-day delay in treatment. The Supreme Court ruled that the trial court appropriately granted the casino summary judgment.

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 Baiguen v. Harrah's Las Vegas, 2018 Nev. LEXIS 70 (Sept. 13, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 101.01.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see