(Published September 22, 2008)
As long as employees have a right to collect Workers' Compensation, there will never be a shortage of wacky claims. We recently asked visitors to our website to share some of their funniest Workers' Comp stories. We thought you'd enjoy the laughs, and, perhaps, the chance to add your own.
Sometimes, it seems that employees don't understand what Workers' Compensation is for — like the employees who tried to claim pregnancy or, umm, a social disease.
Or perhaps they subscribe to the theory that it doesn't hurt to throw something against the wall and see if it sticks, like the employee who self-diagnosed a spider bite — she didn't know where it happened, but it must have been at work. It didn't work for her, but it did for a nursing assistant who was involved in an on-the-job car accident. Earlier this year, the North Carolina Court of Appeals considered for the first time whether damaged breast implants are covered by WC. It ruled that they are, because they are a "prosthetic device that functions as part of the body."
I'm sure some claims arise from an employee's victim — or entitlement — mentality. I read the case of an employee in California who sought to collect Workers' Comp for psychiatric injury allegedly resulting from harassment and persecution by her supervisor and co-workers. While it could be the basis of a legitimate claim, what the state Workers' Comp Appeals Board found was that it was the employee who harassed and persecuted her co-workers; any psychological stress she experienced resulted from their "disdainful reactions" to her mistreatment of them. "To allow an employee to harass co-workers and, when they respond unfavorably, to claim a stress-related injury to the employee's psyche would increase…claims and create the potential for abuse of the system," wrote an appeals court in upholding the board's decision to deny the claim.
Sometimes, you just have to accept that employees do careless things and are entitled to Workers' Comp coverage. One individual told of an employee who was chasing his wife around the kitchen table, and took a turn too sharply and damaged "Mr. Happy." It was covered by Workers' Compensation because the only reason he was chasing his wife was because she had playfully snatched one of his reports off the table while he was working on it.
To be fair, though, sometimes, it's the employer that's careless. Another individual relayed how her brother, a sheriff's deputy, was playing basketball on the back of a donkey and blew his ACL trying to do a slam dunk. He was off duty for a year and covered by Workers' Comp because it was a required event. At least the department wised up and cancelled the donkeyball tournaments.
There doesn't seem to be much you can do to stop employees from filing out-there Workers' Comp claims — except cancel that mandatory donkeyball tournament, of course! It's essentially up to the state WC board to determine whether wacky is legitimate or not.
Gloria Ju
Editor in Chief
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