Human Error and Workplace Accidents—Can You Still Receive Workers’ Compensation?
No matter how careful you are at work, there’s always the potential for injury. Some industries are more dangerous than others, with fields like food service, construction, and manufacturing seeing more injuries than many others each year. If you live in Southern California, you have rights. Through the state’s workers’ compensation system, you can pursue partial lost wages and get your medical care covered. Is your company trying to prevent you from receiving benefits? Let us help. Our team of workers’ compensation attorneys is ready to meet with you over Zoom and handle document signing with DocuSign, saving you time and energy. Call Pisegna & Zimmerman at 818-888-8888 to set up a consultation right away.
When it comes to your work-life balance and quality of life, where you live really matters. Living in California comes with its benefits—and one of the major upsides of living here is the long list of worker protections. Oxfam ranked California as the best state in the country for workers in 2023. This is due in large part to the state’s wage policies, workers’ right to organize, and overall protections. This is clear when you look at the state’s workers’ compensation system.
How Common Are Injuries Caused by Human Error?
A significant amount of workplace injuries are the result of someone’s mistake. No one is productive and watchful 100% of the time, and people are bound to slip while working a full eight to ten hours. In most cases, these mistakes don’t lead to any real consequences. On occasion, though, the circumstances line up just right to cause an injury. Consider these common scenarios: an employee forgets to turn on a safety guard, doesn’t look twice before rounding a busy corner, or misjudges their speed while operating heavy equipment. Human error plays a crucial role in the vast majority of workers’ compensation claims.
Fault and Its Role in Workers’ Compensation Cases
One of the main advantages of the workers’ compensation system is that it does not require you to prove someone’s error in order to receive benefits. This sets it apart from personal injury claims and makes this entire process much easier on the injured person. Workers’ compensation runs on a no-fault basis, so employees qualify for benefits regardless of whether or not someone was negligent.
Fault may come into play, though, if there are suspicions about the nature of your injury. You aren’t barred from receiving workers’ compensation if you accidentally cause your own injury. Mistakes are unavoidable in the workplace, and unfortunately, sometimes those mistakes do lead to injury. But if there are whispers that your injury wasn’t accidental, be ready to have your claim come under investigation by your company’s workers’ compensation insurance provider or your company’s legal team.
In the event of suspicions regarding the nature of your workplace injury, having the guidance of a seasoned workers’ compensation lawyer becomes crucial. Legal professionals, such as those at Pisegna & Zimmerman, can provide invaluable assistance in navigating the complexities of workers’ compensation claims, ensuring your rights are protected throughout the investigation process.
Exceptions to Your Workers’ Comp Rights
This question brings up an important question—when can’t a California employee receive workers’ compensation? California’s workers’ comp laws lay out several specific scenarios in which an injured employee is not able to seek compensation from their employer:
- When the injury is self-inflicted
- When the employee is doing something that is not within the course of their employment
- When an injury is caused by an employee’s impairment by drugs or alcohol
- When an employee is injured in a fight in which they are the aggressor
- When an injury is sustained during the commission of a felony
Some of these limitations are fairly broad and require proof on the part of the employer. For example, the fact that alcohol or drug impairment can stop you from receiving benefits does not mean that your claim is automatically denied if you test positive for drugs or alcohol. Should you test positive, your employer still needs to prove that your injuries were the result of your impairment—not just that they happened while you were impaired.
Furthermore, being injured while engaged in the normal course of your work can be a difficult concept to pin down when your work requires numerous tasks. There have been employers who have tried to claim that employees filling in for someone else on a different task or engaged in tasks outside their normal work should not receive benefits when they are injured. But if you are ordered to do a task, that is generally considered to be within the scope of your employment.
When confronted with challenges or potential disputes regarding their workers’ compensation claim, it is essential for an injured employee to seek the expertise of an experienced workers’ compensation attorney.
Fighting for Justice After a Workplace Injury? Choose Pisegna & Zimmerman
Don’t wait any longer to assert your rights after getting hurt at work. The workers’ compensation lawyers at Pisegna & Zimmerman are ready to meet with you over Zoom, manage your documents over DocuSign, and advocate for you. Call us at 818-888-8888 or send us a message online to set up a consultation now.
William Zimmerman is an experienced Los Angeles work injury attorney at Pisegna & Zimmerman. He offers invaluable advice and assistance when dealing with the often complicated workers’ compensation system. As part of Pisgena & Zimmerman, he and his team are a full-service law firm that is dedicated to obtaining the maximum amount of compensation from all available sources.