A Workers’ Compensation injury is an injury or illness that arises out of and in the course of employment. That being the case, in California, all employees must purchase Worker’s Compensation Insurance, as lack of Workers’ Compensation is deemed to be violating the law. The Workers’ Compensation insurance will adjust the injury and provide benefits to the injured worker.
it doesn’t matter who caused the injury to the employee. Even if the employee caused his own injury, as long as it happened at work and from the employment, the injury can be deemed Workers’ Compensation injury.
REAL CASE SCENARIO*: A steel press operator sees that his press machine is stuck because a steel plate got jammed in the press hinge. He attempted to un-jam the press by sticking hand, without shutting the machine down first. Naturally, when he was able to free the jammed steel plate from the press, the machine press began running again, and crushed his right hand.
In this scenario, because the injury occurred out of and in the course of work (i.e. employee hurts his hand while operating a steel press at work), the injury is deemed a Workers’ Compensation injury and is compensable by his employer’s Worker’s Compensation injury. It doesn’t matter that he injured himself because he was negligent, as long as the injury occurred out of and in the course of work.
*All scenarios on this website are real fact patterns from cases that we’ve handled