DO I GET WORKERS COMPENSATION AFTER WORK INJURY – ATTORNEYS MN
Workers compensation insurance helps employees who have been injured on the job. There are two distinct requirements for an injury to qualify for workers compensation coverage in Minnesota: the ‘arising out of’ requirement and the ‘in the course of’ requirement. The arising out of requirement implies a causal connection. The in the course of requirement refers to the time, place and circumstances of the incident causing the injury.
The employee bears the burden of proof on both of these requirements. A Minnesota workers compensation lawyer will help you prove your case and entitlement to benefits.
A causal connection must exist between the injury and the employment. This is step one before the injured employee can qualify for compensation under the MN workers comp act. This means the injury must arise as a natural incident of the work. In other words, a reasonable person would think the injury could result from the nature of the employment.
WORKERS COMPENSATION DENIAL OF BENEFITS
Benefits are paid where the employee is exposed to a different or greater risk than if he had been pursuing his ordinary personal affairs. For example, a teacher being accidentally hit with a bat on the playground. The arising out of requirement can be satisfied even when the workplace condition connected to the injury is not obviously hazardous. An example of this is where the employee was injured while walking down the stairs at work because of lack of a handrail. The absent handrail increased employee’s exposure to injury beyond what the employee would face in her everyday non-work life.
NOT ALL WORK ACCIDENTS ARE COVERED
However, the workers compensation law in MN does not make the employer an insurer against all accidents that might befall an employee. The law requires more to satisfy the arising out of requirement for workers compensation than simply an injury occurring at work. The employee must be exposed to a condition that placed her at an increased risk of injury beyond what she would experience in her non-work life. For instance, falling on the job only because of employee’s own choice to wear high heels is not covered. However, this may leave the employer open to a claim for negligence liability after a work injury.
To satisfy the ‘in the course of employment’ requirement for a workers comp claim in MN, (1) an employ’s injury must occur within the time and space boundaries of employment. When an injury occurs off the business premises or outside of regular business hours, the employee is still entitled to compensation if the employee was being of service to the employer at the time of the injury. Where the employee suffers a medical emergency at work and co-employee’s negligence make it worse, or employment conditions make it worse, it arises out of his employment and is covered by the Act.
INJURY LAWYERS MN
If you are injured on the job at work and have a question about whether your injury is covered by workers compensation, please call our office for a free consultation.Our MN personal injury lawyers represent people injured in a work accident in their claim against a third party. For example, a postal worker bit by a dogor a machine worker injured by defective equipment. We have many cases where an employee is injured by another driver while driving for work, etc.
If your question is solely about workers comp benefits from your employer, we will answer your basic questions. Then, we will refer you to a workers compensation lawyer we frequently refer cases to. The initial consultation is free. Further, and we never charge anything unless we recover compensation for you. You can discuss your workers’ compensation case with an attorney over the phone or in our office.