If you follow the world of professional basketball, you may have heard about the recent lawsuit involving a New York Knicks player permitted to sue under California's much more generous workers' compensation laws when a career-ending injury took place in this state. While you're unlikely to ever make it as a professional basketball player, if you frequently travel to other states for work-related purposes you could find yourself in a similar legal situation if you're injured while on a long-term assignment out of state. What laws govern injuries that occur away from your primary work location, and what should you do if you're injured while traveling for work? Read on to learn more about how differences in state laws could affect you.
What laws govern workplace injuries from companies headquartered out of state?
The Knicks case is especially unique as it involves a provision of California law that permits workers' compensation benefits for "cumulative damage" (like overuse injuries in physical jobs or occupational illnesses for those who work around carcinogens). Although the New York Knicks are headquartered in New York and pay workers' compensation premiums based on New York's state laws (which don't always permit a cause of action for cumulative damage), they were deemed responsible because the final injury in a chain of long-term joint damaging injuries took place in California.
Each state's workers' compensation laws differ -- some states provide a pool of workers' compensation coverage (with funds raised through additional business taxes) while others require employers to purchase a workers' compensation policy from a private insurance provider. In either case, these policies are often written to specifically address facilities or worker assignments out of state. For example, an employer in a state with fairly employer-friendly workers' compensation laws is likely to select an insurance policy that requires any claims from out of state workers to be filed in the headquartered state. An employer in a state with employee-friendly workers' compensation laws may want to choose a policy that permits employees to file workers' compensation claims if they're working in states with stricter laws.
As a result, even if you're familiar with the workers' compensation laws in your home state, you may not be able to determine the laws governing a potential claim without requesting a copy of your employer's workers' compensation policy. It should be safe to assume that a claim will be litigated under either the laws of the state in which you were injured or your home state.
What should you do if you suffer an injury while temporarily working or traveling for work in another state?
Because this scenario can quickly turn an open-and-shut workers' comp case into something more complex, you'll want to consult an attorney as quickly as possible. Most states will impose fairly short limits on the length of time that you have to report an injury to an employer before it expires and is no longer eligible for workers' comp benefits, so determining your options within this time frame is important.
If you're unable to seek legal counsel, you'll want to report the injury to your employer using the procedures described in your employee handbook. If your company doesn't have a policy on workers' compensation claims, you should submit your report to your direct superior in writing (preferably email or another digital format that can provide you with a read receipt). This will ensure that your employer has adequate notice of a potential claim and can't argue that you didn't submit your report in time.
You'll then want to begin keeping careful documentation of the expenses you've incurred as a result of this injury. Once your workers' compensation claim is approved you should be able to seek reimbursement for these expenses, and reconstructing bills later can be a hassle. By keeping track of expenses as they occur, you'll be able to provide an itemized list to the workers' comp insurer including dates and dollar amounts.
For more information on your options with workers' compensation, check out web pages like http://www.hardeeandhardee.com.
