Doing Your Job Negligently is Still Doing Your Job
In order to recover Illinois Workers’ Compensation benefits for a work injury, the accident needs to have occurred in the course of your employment. But frequently, employees are injured at work while doing their job in a dangerous or negligent way. What then? Does the employee’s bad conduct take away the right to benefits?
Generally, you will still be entitled to benefits, even if you are acting negligently and against company policy, as long as what you are doing was related to performing your job. One of the main goals of workers’ compensation insurance is to remove the element of fault and contributory negligence from this arena, and simplify the process to receiving compensation for work injuries. So it would seem reasonable to expect that in most cases, you could still be covered even if you are responsible for making a bad choice.
Recently, a forklift operator was injured when he tampered with the seatbelt on the forklift. The spring loaded mechanism opened up and struck him in the eye. Fixing or altering the forklift parts was not part of his job duties, however riding on the forklift and using the seatbelt was. So even if the employee was negligent in his manipulation of the seatbelt, he was doing it not for his own personal benefit, but in the course of benefitting his employer. He is likely to be covered by workers’ compensation for his injury.
Illinois courts have supported this principle, holding that if the employee was where he was supposed to be and doing work that was part of his employment, then even committing a safety violation or other prohibited activity, would not make him ineligible for workers’ compensation benefits.
On the other hand, in a case where a woman was using the laundry press at work for her own personal clothes and not for any work uniforms or other job purpose, she was not acting in the scope of her employment. She should not be entitled to benefits for the burns she got while operating the press.
The distinction is whether it was a prohibited activity that is not part of work, or whether it was a prohibited manner of doing work that is for the benefit of your employer. If it is the second, then it should not matter how many times your employer tells you not to do something; you still would be covered if you were performing your job and the accident arose out of that job performance.
One exception to this principle, is that you cannot benefit from workers’ compensation if you committed the dangerous or wrong acts intentionally, knowing that what you were doing was likely to cause injury. Bad conduct that violates company policy is one thing, but acting without regard to likely consequences, or knowing you would likely cause injury is another.
We are workers' compensation attorneys that help people with Illinois work injuries anywhere in IL via our statewide network of attorneys. Contact us and we will answer your questions or find the right lawyer for your situation.
