Category Archives: Workers’ Compensation

Work Injury During Sex: Ridiculous?

This post comes to us from our colleague Charlie Domer in Wisconsin. While the topic of sex provides some entertaining context, Charlie does point out that, when you are traveling for business, even injuries that happen during non-work-related activities may be covered by workers’ compensation. While this article addresses Wisconsin law specifically, New York law is very similar.

Work Injury During Sex: Ridiculous? Not really. From time to time lurid headlines raise eyebrows about employees who claim worker’s compensation for injuries occurred during sex. The most common response is “How ridiculous . . . The employee is not being paid to have sex (unless she is a hooker).”

A most recent headline notes an Australian woman who had hotel sex with an acquaintance and was injured when a wall-mounted light fell on her during the encounter. She sought worker’s compensation because the incident occurred during a business trip and she claimed having sex on a business trip is “an ordinary incident of life” that entitles her to payment under worker’s compensation law.

Traveling employees are deemed to be in the course of employment at all times while on a trip

Traveling employees receive broad worker’s compensation coverage Continue reading

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What’s so dangerous about hotel room cleaning? It turns out, a lot.

Exposure to harsh chemicals and repeated bending can take its toll.

As we shared with you last week, hotel housekeeping may not seem dangerous, but it can be grueling physical labor.

A recent study published by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health reported that tasks including dusting, vacuuming, changing linens, making beds, and scrubbing bathrooms may lead to a range of injuries. Some of the most common ones include:

Continue reading

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The most dangerous job in the service industry is done mainly by women

Hotel room cleaning is a job that comes with risks.

Hotels can be a dangerous place to work. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, of all service industry workers, hotel workers have the highest rate of injury at 5%. The average for all service industries is only about 3.4%.

Hotel room cleaners have significantly higher injury rates than other hotel workers, with nearly 8% experiencing Continue reading

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World Trade Center dust and 9/11 first responders with cancer, time for U.S. Government to stop withholding benefits

9/11 first responders move smoldering debris

Many courageous first responders, who saved lives at Ground Zero, have since been diagnosed with cancer, and yet the U.S. government does not pay for their treatment. This Saturday, September 10, CNN will air Terror In The Dust, an investigation by chief medical correspondent Dr. Sanjay Gupta into the consequences of the deadly dust produced by the World Trade Center’s collapse. Gupta speaks with 9/11 heroes and medical experts about the consequences of the carcinogen-filled dust.

A new study released earlier this week by the New York City Fire Department provides good evidence of a link between 9/11 first responders and cancer. The study showed a 32% greater incidence of cancer among firefighters who worked at Ground Zero than those who did not.

The NIOSH study concluded that the 9/11 debris did contain known carcinogens.

The U.S. government does not pay for cancer treatments of 9/11 first responders. This is because Continue reading

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Workers’ Comp Benefits Off the Work Site: Work At Home, Travel

This post is the first of many you’ll be seeing on our blog by guest writer Tom Domer of Wisconsin. In this post, Tom notes that over 18-million people work from home today. He smartly questions the traditional criteria for whether work done from home can be applied to a workers’ compensation claim. 

We are living in a digital age.

After all, we’re living in a digital age. Increased use of things like cell phones and laptops challenges standard ideas of what a work-related injury is. 

A whole host of “Course of Employment” issues accompanies the increased prevalence of work done at home, enhanced significantly by computer technology. Many employees contract with their employers to work frequently or exclusively from their homes. Does an accident in the employee’s kitchen Continue reading

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Mental Injuries in Workers’ Compensation

Today we’re featuring another guest post by our colleague Tom Domer of Wisconsin. Here Tom shares the legal tests that establish whether damages for mental injury will be awarded. For mental injuries following a physical injury, the standard is “Is the mental disability… related to the work injury?” For cases that don’t involve a physical injury, some states require that the stress that triggered the mental injury be extraordinary “beyond those stresses than the day to day emotional strain and tension which all employees must experience.” While these criteria can be difficult to meet, mental injuries are real and can be as debilitating as physical ones.

From time to time, headline stories appear in the national news about workers claiming compensation benefits for “mental stress” injuries.  Continue reading

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