Georgia Workers Compensation Attorney Blog

All employers are required to provide a safe workplace for their employees. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) sets and enforces workplace safety standards, and all employers are required to comply with OSHA’s standards. OSHA monitors working conditions and issues citations and penalties to employers that fail to comply with its standards in Georgia and throughout the country.

Although the existence of an OSHA citation or penalty will not necessarily have an impact on a Georgia workers’ compensation claim, it may have an impact in some circumstances. For example, in some states, a worker may actually be entitled to increased benefits if an employer is issued an OSHA citation. Evidence of a willful OSHA violation may also be used to opt out of workers’ compensation or to bring a claim against another party, allowing an injured worker to potentially receive greater benefits.

That being said, an employee who is injured at work can still be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, regardless of whether the employer is issued or accepts an OSHA citation. As the following discussion illustrates, employers are required to be familiar with OSHA regulations, and ignorance of the agency’s standards is not a valid defense for employers attempting to contest penalties.

Continue reading →

Since workplace injuries are generally governed by workers’ compensation laws, bringing a Georgia work injury claim against a coworker can be complicated. In a recent case, one state’s supreme court rejected the claims of two plaintiffs brought against coworkers due to the state’s workers’ compensation laws.

In both cases, the plaintiffs were injured at work. In one case, the employee touched a power line that he thought had been turned off. He was thrown off the platform, and the injury rendered him a quadriplegic. He alleged a coworker was negligent because the coworker used the wrong tool to de-energize the power line. The plaintiff also alleged his supervisor was negligent, since his supervisor was responsible for enforcing the company’s policy on safely de-energizing a power line, and he told the employee the line had been de-energized, even though he had not properly confirmed that it was.

In the other case, the employee was injured when a forklift hit him and ran over his foot. His coworker was driving a forklift when it allegedly hit a rock, causing it to shift and hit the employee. The employee alleged his coworker was negligent in operating the forklift.

Continue reading →

In some Georgia workers’ compensation cases, the question of whether an individual is an employee under the workers’ compensation act is not so clear. In a recent case, one state’s supreme court considered whether a student teacher was entitled to benefits despite not being paid for her position.

The Facts of the Case

The student teacher was in the process of obtaining her teacher’s license, which required she complete 12 weeks of student teaching. She was enrolled in a school that placed her in a classroom four days a week. She was required to submit an application for student teaching. The school principal and the classroom teacher were ultimately responsible for selecting the student teacher. The title of the position was referred to in various capacities as student teacher, intern, and preservice teacher. The student teacher was required to work the same hours as the mentor teacher and to attend staff meetings and school activities. She had a school identification car, school email address, and keys to the school, but she was not allowed to compose any documents that would become part of a student’s record.

The student teacher slipped and fell while at work, injuring her back, hip, and leg, and filed for workers’ compensation benefits. The school argued that she was not an employee and was not entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. The workers’ compensation judge decided she was not an employee within the meaning of the workers’ compensation act, primarily since she was not paid for her work at the school.

Continue reading →

The Georgia Workers’ Compensation Act can provide many benefits to Georgia claimants. Yet it can also act as a roadblock to certain claims, as one recent case illustrates.

In that case, a hospital employee in Missouri was a courier who was responsible for delivering medical supplies. He was supposed to work on a day when there was a severe winter storm. His supervisor asked his superior whether the employee should drive that day, and he was told that he should but that he should drive slowly and carefully. During his shift, the employee’s supervisor called the employee to check on him, and the employee said that his windshield was freezing. The supervisor called his superior again, who said that he should continue to work. Later during his shift, the employee’s vehicle slid off the road, and the employee died as a result. The employee was not delivering any supplies that needed immediate delivery.

The employee’s wife sued the two supervisors for wrongful death, claiming they were negligent in directing the employee to drive his route despite the conditions. The defendants argued the lawsuit was barred by the exclusivity provision in the state’s workers’ compensation act.

Continue reading →

Luckily for employees, they do not have to be in perfect health before an injury in order to qualify for workers’ compensation benefits in Georgia. This means that if an employee is injured on the job, the employee may qualify for benefits if the work injury aggravates a preexisting injury.

Court Rejects Employee’s Aggravation Claim

In a recent case, one state’s supreme court considered whether an employee’s left knee injury aggravated a preexisting injury to his right knee. In that case, the employee injured his left knee while he was working for the city’s street department, first in 2009 and again in 2012. His injuries were covered under the state’s workers’ compensation act. However, the employee later reported pain in his right knee, and he was diagnosed with severe degenerative joint disease of the right knee.

The employee underwent surgery on his right knee but did not seek workers’ compensation approval for the procedure. After the procedure, the employee filed for workers’ compensation benefits for the injury to his right knee. He argued that his left knee injuries aggravated a preexisting degenerating joint disease in his right knee as well. The workers’ compensation commission rejected his claim, and he appealed.

Continue reading →

Georgia’s Workers’ Compensation Act is meant to give employees a faster and more streamlined way to receive benefits for injuries suffered at work. However, the drawback is that there are limits on what employees can recover under the Act. In some cases, employees attempt to bring claims outside the workers’ compensation system, although in many cases they are barred from doing so.

O.C.G.A. 34-9-11 of Georgia’s Workers’ Compensation Act states that the “rights and remedies” granted to an employee under the Act “shall exclude and be in place of all other rights and remedies of such employee, his or her personal representative, parents, dependents, or next of kin, and all other civil liabilities whatsoever at common law or otherwise, on account of such injury, loss of service, or death.” This means that generally, any claims for injuries incurred at work must be brought under the Workers’ Compensation Act. However, there are exceptions in some cases that may allow employees to bring additional claims.

Court Rejects Breach of Contract Claim, Finding It Barred Under Workers’ Compensation Act

One state’s supreme court found in a recent case that a breach of contract claim was barred by the state’s workers’ compensation act after the man died from a work injury. The man had been injured at work and required multiple surgeries over the next few years as a result. During one hospitalization, he requested an order from the Workers’ Compensation Court that he be treated by a nutritionist, based on a recommendation from his doctors. However, he died before a consultation could be completed. The insurer claimed that it was not required to pay for a nutritional consultation because it argued that his nutritional problems arose prior to his work injury.

Continue reading →

If a worker is injured and files a claim for Georgia workers’ compensation benefits, the employer only has a certain amount of time to investigate the claim and contest compensability. In a recent case, an employer was barred from raising a defense that its employee was intoxicated at the time of his injury because it failed to diligently investigate the claim within the allotted time period.

In that case, the employee fell while emptying garbage from a dumpster while he was working at a fish market. He claimed later that he slipped on a piece of fish. The employer was told about the accident that day, but he did not report the accident to his workers’ compensation insurance carrier. The employee fractured his hip, and due to multiple complications he ended up having five surgeries.

The employee filed a claim for workers’ compensation benefits about nine months after the injury, which was the insurance carrier’s first notice of the injury. The employer paid but continued to investigate the claim during the following 120 days it had to do so. But it was not until almost six months after it was notified of the injury that the employer denied that the injury was compensable. The employer claimed that the injury was not compensable because the injury was due to the employee’s intoxication at the time of the injury.

Continue reading →