When is the Injury Work Related?
When you have an injury at work or outside of work that you think might be work related, you often ask: Is it Covered? The answer is it depends. It depends on the facts of your employment and the facts surrounding the accidental injury or occupational disease.
This website has a great deal of resources related to finding out if you can get workers’ compensation benefits and getting to find out how much those workers’ comp benefits are. This page focuses only on was the injury “work related.”
- For information about employee vs. independent contractor go here.
- For information about going to work or coming from work, go here.
- For information on being eligible for workers comp if you work part-time, go here.
As for work related, generally the injury must be connected to the work. A case called Harris v. Board of Education was decided by the Court of Appeals, Maryland’s highest court. The case helped define connected to work as related to accidental injuries. It said, in essence, there are two major points:
1. The injury must arise “out of” employment and
2. “in the course of” employment
In the words of this website: If you were getting paid, as an employee, to do something for an employer and you got hurt while you were doing that something or while on a short break from doing that something, you are entitled to compensation for the injury that happened.
Basically, “arising out of” and “in the course of” employment are each looked at thoroughly and each uses many factors. The best course of action, anytime there is any issue as to whether the injury is covered, is to employ an attorney who has dealt with the factors before. If the insurance company is disputing liability, you want to be prepared with a lawyer. You don’t want to be fighting a few words in a sentence like “arising out of” or “in the course of.”
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