Exclusiveness of Compensation Remedy
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| One of the hallmarks of workers' compensation is its exclusivity as a remedy for the injured worker. With exception, when an employee suffers an injury in the course of his employment, his remedy will only be by way of the workers' compensation system. Workers' compensation, therefore, trumps all other remedies including those under common-law tort, statutes, and contracts. The exclusivity of workers' compensation, though challenged, has continually been found to be constitutional.
In exchange for protecting employers against the payment of exceptionally large damage claims by limiting an employee's recovery to that provided under workers' compensation, employees are relieved of the duty to prove fault in order to gain a recovery for their injury. If an employee does bring a tort action against the employer, it is the employer's burden to show that the employee's recovery is limited to that available through workers' compensation. When determining whether the employee is bound by the workers' compensation system, courts look to the nature of the parties' relationship when the injury occurred. As long as the injury arose out of and in the course of employment, it is irrelevant that the employee may no longer work for the employer. Copyright 2010 LexisNexis, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. |