An employee injured on the job is generally limited to seeking recovery by filing a workers’ compensation claim. This means they cannot sue the employer in civil court.
However, there are exceptions in which an employee can sue employers for a work-related accident, meaning they can bypass the workers’ compensation system. This may allow a larger award, which could include pain and suffering and even punitive damages.
Our personal injury attorneys discuss these exceptions below.
Workers’ comp is supposed to cover medical care for job-related injuries.
Suing Employers for Workplace Injuries
When your employer does something that is not part of the working relationship and you get injured, workers’ comp does not apply. Therefore, you have the right to sue your employer in civil court.
Moving the case to civil court may produce a bigger payout. However, you would have to prove the employer did something wrong, which you do not have to do in workers’ comp. cases.1
Specifically, you can sue your employer in civil court in the following five situations:
1. Injury from Intentional Acts
An injury on the job is “accidental” for the purposes of workers’ compensation cases unless it results from “a conscious and deliberate intent (by the employer) directed to the purpose of inflicting an injury.”
To show that your employer intentionally assaulted you, you have to show that:
- the employer meant to do something, such as a physical act, and
- that they did it to injure you.
Without these two factors, it is considered a work injury, and you have to stay within the workers’ compensation system.
Note that you can also sue the employer if they told another coworker to assault you. It is as if the employer did it themselves.2
Fraudulent concealment by an employer is grounds for getting around workers’ comp.
2. Injury from Fraudulent Concealment
You may be exposed to certain conditions that your employer both knows about and hides from you. This generally applies to employees working with hazardous chemicals.
For example, if your employer knows you were exposed to a hazardous chemical, they should tell you. If not, your employer is basically committing fraud, meaning they are failing to disclose facts they have a duty to disclose. Because of this bad act, you can sue your employer in civil court.
Employers do not have to misrepresent a fact for fraudulent concealment to occur explicitly. They simply have to know about the existence of the danger. Their silence as to the danger is fraudulent concealment.3
3. Dual Capacity
Just because you work somewhere does not mean that every interaction with your employer is part of that relationship. Your employer can act in a “dual capacity,” as both your employer and also as having a separate relationship with you.
For example, if you are injured using a defective device manufactured by the employer that is also for sale to the general public for similar use, you are treated like a customer as opposed to an employee. This change in the relationship gives you the right to sue your employer.4
A power press is a material-forming machine designed for use in the manufacture of other products.
4. Injury from a Power Press
A power press injury occurs when:
- your injury is proximately caused by your employer’s knowing removal of, or knowing failure to install, a point of operation guard on a power press, and
- this removal or failure to install is specifically authorized by your employer under conditions known by your employer to create a probability of serious injury or death.”
For you to successfully sue your employer for a power press injury, your employer needs to have known that the machine needed a guard. They would only know this if the manufacturer told them. To be held liable, employers have to take the specific action of:
- not installing the guard,
- removing it, or
- telling someone else to do this.
Otherwise, any power press injuries would be compensated through workers’ comp.5
5. No Workers’ Compensation Insurance
All employers are required to have workers’ compensation insurance. If they do not and you get injured, you may bring an action at law against your employer for damages.
When you sue your employer in this situation, you do not have to prove that your employer was at fault. It is your employer’s responsibility to prove that they were not. This is their penalty for not having workers’ compensation insurance.
If you file a workers’ compensation claim form and the company is uninsured, a state agency – the Uninsured Employers Benefits Trust Fund – may step in and pay benefits awarded. This is so you can receive workers’ compensation benefits in a timely fashion.6
Additional Reading
For more in-depth information, refer to these scholarly articles:
- The Exclusiveness of an Employee’s WOrkers’ Compensation Remedy against His Employer – Tennessee Law Review.
- The Clash between Strict Products Liability Doctrine and the Workers’ Compensation Exclusivity Rule: The Negligent Employer and the Third-Party Manufacturer – Insurance Counsel Journal.
- Recent Developments in Workers’ Compensation and Employers’ Liability Law – Tort Trial & Insurance Practice Law Journal.
- Apportionment of Liability in Workplace Injury Cases – Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law.
- “Callous Disregard” for Employee Safety: The Exclusivity of the Workers’ Compensation Remedy Against Employers – Labor Law Journal.
Legal References:
- California Labor Code § 3602(b)(1)-(3). Cal. Lab. Code § 4558. Cal. Lab. Code § 3706. Cal. Const. art. XIV §4. Iverson v. Atlas Pacific Engineering (1983) 143 Cal. App. 3d 219, 223. See http://www.dir.ca.gov/dwc/WCFaqIW.html for information on California workers’ compensation law and the Division of workers’ compensation. Cal. Lab. Code § 4600. https://www.dir.ca.gov/dwc/PDR.pdf.
- Cal. Lab. Code § 3709. Cal. Lab. Code § 3602(b)(1). 2A Larson, Workmen’s Compensation Law (1992) § 68.13, p. 13-10. Soares v. City of Oakland (1992) 9 Cal. App. 4th 1822, 1828. Rakestraw v. Rodrigues (1972) 5 Cal.3d 67, 73. Iverson v. Atlas Pacific Engineering, Supra. Fretland v. County of Humboldt (1999) 82 Cal. Rptr. 2d 359, 364.
- Cal. Lab. Code § 3602(b)(2). Foster v. Xerox Corp. (1985) 40 Cal.3d 306, 309. Hughes Aircraft Co. v. Superior Court (1996) 44 Cal. App. 4th 1790, 1795. Foster v. Xerox Corp. (1985) 40 Cal.3d 306, 311 & 309. Palestini v. General Dynamics Corp. (2002) 120 Cal. Rptr. 2d 741, 754
- Cal. Lab. Code § 3602(b)(1)-(3). Shields v. County of San Diego (1984) 155 Cal. App. 3d 103, 109. Behrens v. Fayette Manufacturing Co. (1992) 4 Cal. App. 4th 1567, 1575.
- Cal. Lab. Code § 4558. Ceja v. JR Wood, Inc. (1987) 196 Cal. App. 3d 1372, 1376. Bingham v. CTS Corp. (1991) 231 Cal. App. 3d 56, 59. Cal. Lab. Code § 4558. Swanson v. Matthews Products, Inc. (1985) 175 Cal. App. 3d 901, 906. Cal. Lab. Code § 4558(a)(6). Flowmaster, Inc. v. Superior Court of Sonoma City (1993) 16 Cal. App. 4th 1019, 1031.
- Cal. Lab. Code § 3706. Cal. Lab. Code § 3550. Cal. Lab. Code § 3715(a). Devens v. Goldberg (1948) 33 Cal. 2d 173, 176. https://www.dir.ca.gov/dwc/claims.html. See also Cole v. Fair Oaks Fire Protection Dist. (1987) 43 Cal.3d 148, 161.