In an unusual case involving horseplay, a New York appellate court affirmed a state trial court's decision that had refused to grant summary judgment to a defendant-co-employee who had been sued by a plaintiff/co-worker following that co-worker's injuries...
A Mississippi truck driver employed by an independent hauler may not maintain a civil action against one of the hauler’s customers, whose own employee engaged in a horseplay incident with the driver by giving him a “bear hug” and throwing the driver into some pallets...
Applying New York’s rule regarding co-employee immunity—that in order for a co-employee to be shielded from liability, the co-employee must (a) have been acting within the scope of his or her employment and (b) not have been engaged in a willful or intentional...
In a divided decision, the Court of Appeals of Mississippi held that a pipefitter, who sustained severe injuries when he fell some 25 feet from the top of a gum tree, was engaged in inappropriate horseplay at the time of the injury, such that the injury did not...
The Missouri Labor and Industrial Relations Commission denied benefits to a claimant who burned himself after he intentionally lit a can of industrial adhesive on fire to startle to a co-worker. The claimant lapsed into a coma as a result of his injuries and woke...
A Kentucky appellate court affirmed a determination by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board that a heavy equipment operator’s severe injuries did not result from horseplay where evidence suggested that a co-worker serving as a “spotter” alongside the operator...
The Supreme Court of South Dakota awarded workers’ compensation benefits to a construction worker who sustained a severely broken leg when he tried to jump a trench while running at a construction site. The state’s Department of Labor and a circuit court had earlier...
A New Mexico appellate court recently affirmed an award of benefits to a worker injured during a workplace horseplay incident in which she was grabbed around her shoulders and lifted off the ground. When an MRI indicated she suffered from “significant” spinal...
© Copyright 2014 LexisNexis. All rights reserved. For reprint permission, contact Robin.E.Kobayashi@lexisnexis.com . During the past several Januarys, I’ve shared with readers my annual list of bizarre workers’ compensation cases for the prior...