Your employer’s insurance company will look for any ways to limit their liability or outright deny your claim after an accident in the workplace, and one of the avenues they will explore is whether or not you were following company policy at the time of the injury. Being injured while violating company policy does not automatically prevent you from collecting workers’ compensation, but it will make your case more complicated. We take a closer look at how you can still collect workers’ compensation if you were injured while violating company policy in today’s blog.
Injured While Breaking Company Policy
If you were injured while in direct violation of company policy or recommended safety protocols, the insurance company may try to deny your claim. They will typically do this by invoking the prohibited acts defense. This defense states that an employer is not liable to provide compensation for injuries that were a direct result of an employee engaging in a prohibited act. However, there’s more that needs to be proved in order for this defense to hold up.
Not only does an employee need to be in violation of the company policy, but the following factors must also exist:
- The employee needs to know about the company policy.
- The policy needs to be regularly observed.
- The employer takes reasonable steps to enforce the policy.
- The prohibition was reasonable in and of itself.
- The action by the employee must be unreasonably dangerous.
- The employer cannot reasonably foresee that the prohibited act would regularly take place.
There’s a lot to sort through with the above points, but they allow an employee to make a number of different cases as to why their injury should still be compensated even if they were in direct violation of a company policy. For example, if a safety harness is required when working on a roof, but the site manager and others were not wearing them when an employee suffered injuries from a fall, you’d likely have a case that the company policy was not regularly enforced or followed. Or, let’s say you were working on a machine without eye protection. If you were unaware safety glasses were required when using that machine, you could still receive compensation.
Obviously the above laws are complex and open to interpretation, which is why it is so important to have a lawyer by your side if you are trying to collect compensation after an injury involving a violation of company policy. Your employer’s insurance company will have a number of lawyers and experts on their side, so you need one on your side as well. The state actually does a good job of protecting worker rights if they are injured when breaking company protocol as long as the action isn’t egregious, but you may not know that if you’re unfamiliar with the system or you take the insurance company at their word.
At Hey Workers, we’ve helped numerous employees collect injury payouts after they’ve suffered an injury while in violation of company policy. It really comes down to putting a strong claim together and knowing the laws that protect your rights. Don’t let an insurance company bully you out of your rightfully earned compensation. Instead, set up an appointment with an injury firm like Hey Workers and let us explain all your options. You’ve got nothing to lose and everything to gain. For more information, or for help with your injury claim, reach out to our team today at (844) 439-9675.
