As is the case in a number of other states, Delaware’s Workers’ Compensation Act bars recovery of benefits if the employee’s injury results from “the employee’s deliberate and reckless indifference to danger” [19 Del. C. § 2353(b)]. A Delaware appellate court affirmed...
Acknowledging that pursuant to Va. Code § 65.2306(A), an injured worker can be disqualified from receiving workers’ compensation benefits if he or she intentionally engages in activity contrary to a known safety rule imposed by the employer, a state...
The Supreme Court of South Dakota affirmed an award of death benefits to the surviving spouse of a municipal employee who died in a work-related trench collapse and criticized the state's Department of Labor for coming "perilously close to the prohibited...
A Virginia appellate court affirmed a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission that had denied benefits to a truck driver who sustained serious injuries in a vehicle crash on the basis that he had engaged in willful misconduct in violation...
Applying the 4-part test described in Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law , § 34.01, et seq. , a Tennessee appellate court affirmed a state trial court’s determination that an employer failed to show that one of its healthcare workers willfully...
A workers’ compensation claimant was appropriately disqualified from receiving benefits under N.Y. Work. Comp. Law § 114-a(1) where claimant represented to his treating physician and the carrier's medical expert that he was in constant pain, required use of...
The failure of a Virginia bus driver to lock and wear his seatbelt upon picking up passengers—he later sustained serious injuries when his vehicle was struck from behind, careened down a guardrail, and then flipped—constituted willful misconduct under...
Noting that once a Florida employer (or carrier) becomes aware of the need for medical benefits for a particular condition or injury, it has three options: pay, deny, or pay and investigate within 120 days, in accordance with § 440.20(4), Fla. Stat., a Florida...
Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 268A, § 25, which generally allows Massachusetts municipalities to suspend “compensation” while an employee is under indictment for malfeasance, did not proscribe the receipt of workers’ compensation benefits by an EMT/paramedic who had been...
In Georgia, violation of express instructions or the mere doing of a hazardous act in which the danger is obvious does not constitute willful misconduct that disqualifies an injured employee from an award of benefits; the employer must also show that the intentional...
Proof that an employee was intoxicated at the time of his or her injury is not sufficient to defeat the claim, held a Virginia appellate court recently; the employer must also prove that the intoxication caused the accident resulting in injury. Where an employer...
A Louisiana appellate court affirmed a decision by a state workers’ compensation judge that a worker forfeited his right to workers’ compensation benefits because he deliberately made false statements in order to obtain workers’ compensation [La. Rev. Stat. 23...
Statements made by a workers’ compensation claimant to her attorney that she felt like “punching the lights” out of a co-worker, whom the claimant felt had intentionally caused the claimant injury at work, were not the sort of acts that constituted...
While the action of the employer in utilizing undersized “outriggers” to extend a work platform could be characterized as reckless, the employer was nevertheless entitled to summary judgment in an intentional tort action filed against it by an injured...