Three of the Most Amusing Workers Compensation Claims You’ll Read About Today
As most people know, you can get workers compensation to cover the cost of your injuries if you get hurt at work. In order to be eligible to receive these workers compensation benefits, you need to be an employee of a company that provides workers compensation and have been hurt while doing a work-related task.
To some, a “work related task” is looser definition than it is to other, which can lead to some pretty interesting workers compensation claims. Here are a few such interesting injuries that people have tried to get workers compensation to cover.
Listening to People Complain Does Not Cause Hearing Loss.
In 2007, Linda Zahm tried to claim that she’d sustained an occupational hearing loss as the result of having been exposed to long-term noise exposure over the telephone from customers who were irate or had difficulty hearing, despite having taken a pre-employment hearing test in 1974 that showed she’d already sustained measurable hearing loss. Her claim was eventually turned down because she had failed to notify her employer of the problems while she’d worked there.
No Horseplay.
An account manager with Coca-Cola had been horsing around with fellow co-workers during a mandatory team building exercise by a river. Challenging them to try to splash him and get him wet, the claimant’s coworkers obliged. In the course of the horse play, the account manager was body slammed against the river bank. Although initially denied, he eventually won his claim.
Vending Machines Break Hips.
Clinton Dwyer, an employee of Circuit City, filed for workers compensation after he fractured his hip in an attempt to shake a bag of chips loose from a vending machine. What makes this particular case amusing is that an aribtrator ruled in Dwyer’s favor, saying that his injury occurred “while coming to the aid of a co-worker seeking personal comfort,” who just so happened to be a girl Dwyer was trying (and failed) to impress.
Getting hurt on the job is serious. If you’ve slipped and fell, been hurt by machinery, or were in an accident in a company vehicle, you may be eligible to receive benefits. If you were hurt listening to customers complain, horsing around, or shaking a vending machine, then you may have a harder time getting compensated.
If you have any questions about workers compensation claims, feel free to ask in the comments.