A workplace injury or accident is
an injury that happens in the course of your workday, at your workplace, or
while driving a company vehicle. Some countries even include injuries or
accidents that happen while commuting back and forth to the workplace as
workplace injuries. These injuries or accidents are something that happens in
the course of work that leads to physical or mental harm. The physical or
mental harm can include death, disease, or any type of disabling or non-disabling
injury.
If you’ve been injured at work,
you may be eligible for compensation from either a workmen’s compensation fund
or from an insurance company that provides coverage for the workplace. For example, in the 1990’s I had a
slip-and-fall accident in a bathroom at my workplace. Because the office space
was rented by my employer, and the bathroom was shared by all employees of all tenants,
in theory I had a claim against the building management and their insurance
company for costs not covered by the workmen’s compensation fund such as pain.
Workmen’s compensation covered all my medical expenses and my time lost from
work (after a certain waiting period), but didn’t cover pain or suffering (or
any other intangible damage).
Workplace accidents are often seen by employers, insurance companies,
and other parties as the employee(s) trying to game the system in order to
receive compensation that they are not entitled to. This is particularly true when the injury or
accident involves muscles such as the back, shoulders, neck, or arms. It is
difficult to see a muscle injury (such as in my slip-and-fall accident) so the
opinion of the employer, the insurance company, and other parties may be that
the injured employee is either faking the injury or overstating the pain.
To this end, all of these parties
will do their very best to make the injured employee or the circumstances
surrounding the injury look questionable.
In the case of my injury, the representative of the building management’s
insurance company came to my apartment, asked me questions that were quite
insulting in nature, and even included my normal pauses in speech (like uh,
like, or what) in the written transcript of the conversation. If I’d known how I was going to be treated
throughout that interview, I would have had either a witness or my lawyer
present during the entire proceedings.
Many employers will also try to
harass the employees who have filed workmens’ compensation claims. After my accident occurred, my employers
placed one of the department printers on my desk, and my
chair was often kicked or bumped by co-workers retrieving their documents. These continual bumps and kicks did nothing
for the pain in my back, and I finally had to threaten to report my employer to
the state health and safety board to get the printer moved.
