Understanding Workers’ Compensation Immunity

Sometimes we are injured on the job or at work, just because our jobs are inherently dangerous, or they expose us to danger. But other times we are injured at work, because someone was careless or negligent. When workers are injured on the job, because of the negligence of their own employer, they face a major legal hurdle to recovery: Massachusetts’ workers compensation immunity laws.

What is Workers Compensation Immunity?

Workers compensation immunity is a law that many states apply. It says that for any injury on the job where you have, or did, or could have used, workers compensation benefits, you cannot also sue for personal injury benefits. You also cannot “choose” between them; if workers compensation is available, it is the sole exclusive remedy for recovery of damages for the injured worker.

An injured worker can’t even sue a fellow employee; the employee is considered to be the same as the company and thus, protected by the same immunity.

Why Have Immunity?

This rule was established because of how relatively easy it is to get workers compensation benefits; you don’t have to sue anybody or show anybody did anything negligent to get quick, immediate medical treatment for your injuries, free of cost.

But in return for that ease, Massachusetts took away the right for employees to sue employers for negligence.

Exceptions to the Immunity

There are some limited exceptions to this harsh rule.

One is for any damages that are not compensable by workers compensation benefits. So, for example, for things like defamation, or workplace harassment, or privacy violations, these would still be able to be brought against an employer, even if workers compensation was provided to the employee.

Of course, any job where workers compensation either isn’t legally provided because it doesn’t have to be, or else, where workers compensation is supposed to be provided by the employer, but it illegally is not being provided, would be situations where an injured employee can still sue an employer for damages.

Suing Third Parties and Parent Companies

The immunity also doesn’t apply, as against third parties—it only prevents an injured worker from suing the employer. So, for example, if you were working on a construction site by a road and got hit by an oncoming car, you couldn’t sue your employer—but you could sue the driver of the vehicle that hit you.

Sometimes, those third parties could be parent companies—that is, companies that own the employer’s company, and thus, are not direct employers of the injured worker.

But that also creates problems, because to show that a parent company is liable for a worker’s injuries in personal injury law, you must show that the parent company undertook some duty of care or safety for the worker, and had some involvement in the breach of that duty. That can be tough to prove, for parent companies that are far removed from the daily operations of the negligent employer.

Call our Boston personal injury lawyers at The Law Office of Joseph Linnehan, Jr. today at 617-275-4200 for help if you were injured on the job to see who may be liable for your accident and injuries.

Sources:

massbar.org/publications/section-review/section-review-article/section-review-2009-v11-n1/is-your-client-entitled-to-workers-compensation-immunity

malegislature.gov/Laws/GeneralLaws/PartI/TitleXXI/Chapter152/Section15