Employees who are allowed by their employer to work from home are subject to the same workers’ compensation laws applicable to regular employees. However, their workers’ comp claims may require the legal advice of an experienced workers’ comp attorney.
General Workers’ Compensation Laws
Workers’ compensation is a no-fault insurance system for compensating employees for injury and illness incurred in the course of their employment duties.
The system is governed by individual state laws and administered by state agencies. While there are slight but meaningful differences, the basic elements are the same among the various states.
An eligible employee does not have to prove the fault of their employer, but they give up the right to recover some damages otherwise recoverable under personal injury laws (e.g. pain and suffering and punitive damages).
Generally, workers’ comp benefits include medical and related expenses, reimbursement for lost wages or earnings, and awards for permanent and temporary disabilities.
All states other than Texas require employers with more than 3 to 5 employees to cover their employees with workers’ compensation benefits. Most provide coverage with workers’ compensation insurance, but some who qualify can self-insure.
Workers’ compensation laws in each state are administered by a state agency. The first source of a resolution of an employee’s workers’ comp claims is the employer or its insurance company. If denied, the employee appeals to the state agency. From there, they can appeal to an administrative law court and ultimately to higher courts.
Employees working at their home office are usually eligible for the same workers’ compensation benefits and subject to the same rules as other workers’ performing their services at the employer’s location.
For any employee to recover benefits, their injury or illness must satisfy the state’s version of the “arising out of and in the course of employment” rule. The employee, at least initially, has the burden to prove that their injury or illness arose out of and in the course of employment. For those injured while working from home there are special challenges for their burden of proof.
Work from Home Trends
Workers’ compensation laws have existed since the 1920s and by 1949, every state has enacted similar laws. Since then, much has changed about working conditions. The framers of the original legislation could not have envisioned those changes.
Certainly, they did not foresee the growth in work-at-home employment that came with Increased consciousness for worker safety, workplace technology, and most recently, the 2-year Covid-19 pandemic.
Today, the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research reports that 42 percent of the U.S. labor force is working from home full-time. This is a very significant development since the enactment of workers’ compensation laws and administrative rules and precedents.
The recent Covid-19 pandemic is just one reason for this development because we are seeing that the popularity and practice appear to have some permanence after the recovery of normalcy from the pandemic. A major reason is the development of technology that facilitates the services of remote workers. Furthermore, work-at-home employment is growing in acceptance by employers and employees alike.
Workers’ Compensation Laws
Your eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits is reliant on the following elements.
Employer Obligation
Does your employer carry workers’ compensation insurance? In most states (other than Texas), employers are required to cover their employees with workers’ compensation benefits if they employ a minimum number of workers (usually 3 to 5), including regular part-time.
Employee Status
You must fit the definition of an employee as distinguished from an independent contractor. The demarcation is not always clear. But basically, you are an employee if you have no independence when it comes to defining your duties, setting your own hours, or deciding how you perform your duties.
Independent contractors are not covered by workers’ compensation and are not entitled to benefits if they are injured while performing their duties.
The lines are cloudy when working at home. Working from home allows you certain independence that you don’t have when you are working in the office with other employees.
Qualified Injury or Illness
For you to qualify for workers’ compensation benefits, your injury or illness must arise out of and in the course of employment. This requirement has two parts.
“Arising out of” suggests a causal relationship between your injury and your employment. An injury “arises out of” employment when a condition or event while you were performing your employment duties was the cause of the injury.
“In the course of” employment is a little more complicated when it comes to remote work. In some states, this requirement is expressed as “course and scope” of employment, but scope is seemingly outside the normally recognized concept or purpose of the requirement.
If you are injured while working in the employer’s office, there is a vague presumption that the injury is incurred in the course of your employment. Not so presumptive when you are working at home.
Suppose you are working from home, and you take a break to feed the dog. You slip and fall in the kitchen and break your arm. Are your injuries covered by your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance?
Expect the employer’s insurance company to deny your claim. Remember, you have the burden to prove that your injury arose out of and in the course of your employment. The following are questions commonly addressed in the context of workers’ compensation claims by a work-from-home employee.
- Did your injury arise out of your employment? Did the performance of your employment duties have a causal connection to the accident?
- Did your slip and fall occur in the course of your employment? Did it occur in the place of, at the time of, and during an activity the purpose of which was the pursuit of your employment duties? Sometimes the issue is whether the activity furthered the business interests of the employer.
Suppose further that your job while working from home is writing content for online marketing of your employer’s products. While you are working at home during your regular work hours you are thinking about your project whether typing, just thinking about the topic, or mentally drafting the content.
Either way, you are furthering the business interests of your employer. Are you not performing that function while feeding the dog?
Home as a Place of Employment
This raises a question that is not relevant to a workers’ compensation claim. While the place of the injury event is relevant for the purpose of the “arising out of and in the course of” questions, there is no requirement that a worker’s compensable injury occur at a particular place. The covered employment duties can be stationary, movable, or transitory.
If an injury arises out and in the course of your assigned employment duties it matters not whether you are performing them in the employer’s office, your home office, or some other work environment.
Common Workers’ Comp Claims for Remote Employees
The most common work-from-home injuries occur because of unsafe conditions that are not ordinarily present in the employer’s workplace. However, one kind of injury occurs at home as often as at the employer’s place of business.
That is “cumulative injuries” that are caused by repetitive movements. These are injuries common to office employees that suffer from poor ergonomics at their workstations. Work-from-home employees have the same risk as those at in-office workstations. They include painful muscles, tendons, and nerves. Common cumulative conditions include tendonitis, bursitis, carpal tunnel syndrome, and back pain.
Another common injury for work-from-home employees is from slips, trips, and falls accidents. At-home work is exposed to those hazards that are not usually found in the ordinary workplace. Those hazards include but are not limited to toys, kitchen spills, and burns.
However, the peculiar nature of those special at-home hazards raises the complexity of the questions of “arising out of” and “in the course of” employment requirements.
What to Do If You Get Hurt Working from Home
If you are injured while working from home, your first step should be to give notice to your employer. Each employer will post the rules and forms for filing a claim which presumably are available on the employer’s website. You should not delay this first step, or it will compromise your claim before it gets off the ground.
You should immediately preserve any evidence that documents or demonstrates how you sustained the injury.
Some people suggest that you wait until your claim is denied before contacting an attorney. Others say don’t wait which is the preferred choice. First, the chances are your claim will be denied because your employer or their insurance company will rely on the complexities of remote workers’ claims. So why wait?
Second, any workers’ compensation claim is replete with pitfalls and mistakes early in the process that can jeopardize your claim. You should immediately seek the legal advice of an attorney experienced in workers’ compensation claims.
