Editorial
Workers' Comp
The
culture of entitlement, in which someone else always is to
blame for your problems and someone else’s money always is available
to pay for the solutions, has arrived in one of the most unusual
places — the state’s workers’ comp system.
You remember workers’ comp, or at least the theory behind the
government-mandated program. Around since the Depression, it’s one
of the most beneficial outgrowths of the constant tension between
labor and management. Under workers’ comp, labor and management
acknowledge the inevitability of on-the-job accidents and agree that
it’s most important in those unfortunate events to provide the
injured employer with partial replacement wages until he can return to
work. Management agrees to put up the money to pay those benefits with
the explicit admission by labor that doing so does not constitute any
admission of guilt for the injury.
From that long-winded explanation of what workers’ comp is, you
should easily infer what workers’ comp is not. It is not a blanket
insurance policy. It is a program whose benefits are narrowly defined
by how, when and where workers do their jobs.
Or it was until a string of decisions in recent years by the N.C.
Court of Appeals and the N.C. Supreme Court turned workers’ comp
into something else entirely. Not otherwise known as havens for social
activism, the courts obviously view workers’ comp as a cash cow that
must pay up even for accidents that can only laughingly be called
on-the-job injuries
The most recent example is a ruling by the Court of Appeals that
Parkdale Mills must pay disability benefits and medical expenses to an
employee who wanted to slip away from work a few minutes early.
Apparently not wanting to be seen leaving by the front door, the
employee chose to exit via the rear parking lot, which was enclosed by
a barbed wire-topped, six-foot-tall chain link fence. He climbed the
fence, fell and broke his leg.
The Court of Appeals said Parkdale Mills must pay up even through the
accident did not occur on the job and was entirely the result of the
employee’s own negligence. As a precedent for this logic-defying
conclusion, the court sited the case of a Hydro Print worker who got
workers’ comp benefits when he hurt his knee racing other employees
to see who was the fastest. They were supposed to be on a rest break
at the time.
The message for employers from these cases, detailed in the state
government report on page 20, is that you can be held responsible for
every conceivable accident that could happen on your property. The
message for the General Assembly is that the legislature needs to act
quickly to rein in the courts and return workers’ comp to its
intended purpose. -- Steve Tuttle
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