Employees in Minnesota get hurt at work in all kinds of situations. Sometimes, they experience violence when a customer becomes aggressive or a co-worker loses their cool. Other times, a piece of defective machinery might malfunction, leading to someone’s serious injury. There are also a variety of scenarios in which a worker who gets hurt is ultimately at fault for the situation.
People trip while rushing to finish a project or respond to a boss’s call. They drop tools and cut themselves. They might make a mistake while using a slicer or another piece of dangerous machinery that will lead to them suffering a major laceration.
Injured employees in Minnesota often understand that workers’ compensation will cover them when they get hurt because of something another person does or some kind of unusual incident, like a scenario in which a defective tool breaks down on the job. But, if a worker is at fault for their own injury, they may understandably wonder about whether they can count on Minnesota workers’ compensation coverage for their lost wages and medical expenses?
Workers’ compensation may help regardless of fault
Despite what employers sometimes try to convince workers, personal fault plays no role in an individual’s eligibility for benefits. A worker doesn’t need to show that their employer was to blame for their injury, and the company having proof that they are to blame won’t make them ineligible.
So long as they got hurt on the job and did not injure themselves through impairment or intentional misconduct intended to cause an injury, they may be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. The coverage available will include both medical benefits to cover someone’s treatment expenses and disability benefits to reimburse someone for the wages they cannot earn while struggling with a job-acquired medical condition.
The only time personal fault will come into play is when employers can show that someone hurt themselves on purpose or were picking fights on the job. Otherwise, a company would need to show that someone failed a drug or alcohol test and that chemical impairment directly led to their injury.
Even if a worker makes a seemingly amateur mistake that causes harm, they would still potentially be eligible for workers’ compensation coverage under the current program in Minnesota. Learning more about the rules that apply to workers’ compensation claims may benefit those who are struggling with the financial repercussions of a recent injury on the job and who are hoping to collect any and all compensation that they’re rightfully owed.
