North Carolina: Exclusive Remedy Rule Does Not Bar Civil Action Against Employer and Plant Nurse

Stressing that although closely related, the “arising out of” [the employment] and the “in the course of employment” concepts are separate and distinct elements of proving a workers' compensation claim, the Court of Appeals of North Carolina held that an employee could maintain a negligence action against his employer and a company nurse where he alleged that he suffered a stroke while at work and the nurse's alleged negligent treatment exacerbated his stroke-related injuries. According to the court, an employee seeking medical care from a medical professional at his or her workplace was not the sort of occurrence that created an injury by accident under the North Carolina Act. Nor did the injury arise out of the employment.

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 Jackson v. Timken Co., 2019 N.C. App. LEXIS 477 (May 21, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 113.08

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see