Trucks and Guns: An Employment Law Fable, Part II (Workers’ Comp & Workplace Violence)

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This truck driver walks into a truck stop.

Read Trucks and Guns: An Employment Law Fable, Part I (Overtime for Truck Drivers) for the whole story. . . . It ends with an HR manager getting shot by the driver (just hypothetically).

Today, shifting gears to my workplace violence research, we’ll cover the second question raised by this scenario:

Can the manager collect workers’ comp?

This is one of the most important issues when an employee is injured or killed in an incident of violence that is at least arguably work-related, and seeks to recover from their employer.

Workers’ compensation liability is a matter of state law (except a few categories of employees covered by similar federal laws). Workers’ compensation statutes, and their interpretations, vary from state to state, though the broad outlines are generally similar.

The answer to this question is important not only to whether the employee can obtain workers’ comp. benefits, but also to whether the employee can pursue a more lucrative common-law action against the employer. If the claim arises under circumstances making comp. benefits potentially available, this fact will typically preclude a common-law claim against the employer, even if the employee is unsuccessful in obtaining comp.

Though it may be phrased differently in different states, the issue essentially is one of the work-relatedness of the violence. Time, place, and motivation of the shooter may all be relevant factors.

Missouri Law, Which May Be Illustrative

Under Missouri law, for an injury to be compensable, it must both arise out of employment and occur in the course of employment:

• An injury is in the course of employment “when it occurs within the period of employment, at a place where the employee may reasonably be and while he is reasonably fulfilling the duties of his employment.”
• It arises out of employment “if it results from a natural and reasonable incident connected with the employment and is the rational consequence of some hazard connected with the employment.”

Missouri law adds a further complication for injuries from assault: they must not have been provoked by the employee seeking compensation.

Finally, under Missouri law, an injury from an assault is not compensable if it arises from a private quarrel that is purely personal to the participants. In such a situation, it is not considered to arise out of employment. Otherwise an assault in the course of employment is considered to meet the “arising” requirement.

In the case of our hypothetical, the shooting did not occur in the workplace as such, but this is not determinative.

The injured manager apparently was performing work duties in discussing the overtime issue with the driver.

Though he was not on his regularly scheduled working time, stopping to meet the driver on his way home after work, the work duties may render the incident one occurring during work.

Perhaps he met drivers to discuss business at the truck stop, for their mutual convenience, often enough that he might be reasonably be expected to be there on a work-related matter, and therefore the time and place requirements for “course of employment” could be established.

While the manager may have been arguing with the driver, this is not provocation for a shooting. (If he had pulled a gun first, it would be a different matter.)

And, finally, this was an argument about a work issue — payment of overtime — and thus clearly not a purely personal quarrel.

Therefore, my conclusion under Missouri law would be that the injury is compensable under workers’ comp. Other state laws may yield a different result.

Remember, in such a scenario, the issue may arise not because the injured employee seeks workers’ comp. and the employer resists comp. liability, but because the employee sues at common law, and the employer resists common-law liability (which is potentially greater exposure) by invoking the defense of workers’ comp. preemption, or exclusivity.

Related Posts

• New Development on Employment Termination for Guns in Company Parking Lots
• 
  Beyond Gun Bans: Understanding and Preventing Workplace Violence

photo credit: Douglas-westbound via flickr

Related Posts

• Trucks and Guns: An Employment Law Fable, Part I (Overtime for Truck Drivers)
• More on workers comp fraud — by employers this time
• Author of new employment screening blog writes on workplace violence; St. Louis employee engages in same
• Workers Comp Insider weblog comments on my English-only post; writes good post on treatment of back pain
• Exchanging pats on the back with fellow blogger; wise words on workers comp
• What chutzpah: claiming workers’ comp for workplace suicide by workplace killer of three
• How common and costly is workers comp fraud?

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