Workers Compensation

The exclusive remedy for a worker injured on the job is to pursue workers compensation benefits under New Jersey’s Workers Compensation Act (WCA) in the form of authorized medical treatment, temporary disability benefits and a partial permanency award to the extent applicable.[1] Relatedly, New Jersey’s Law Against Discrimination (LAD) requires an employer to reasonably accommodate an employee’s disability. N.J.A.C., 13:13-2.5; Potente v. County of Hudson, 187 N.J. 103, 110 (2006). Given this intersection of the WCA and the LAD, our New Jersey Supreme Court in Caraballo v. Jersey City Police Dep’t, 237 N.J. 255 (2019) was called on in a case of first impression to determine whether an employee seeking to have his employer cover his double knee replacement surgery after suffering a serious work-related injury could pursue a failure to accommodate disability discrimination case under the LAD. The Court answered that the employee could not.

Looking to federal courts interpretation of the American with Disabilities Act (ADA) for guidance, the Court in Caraballo noted that that neither the text of the ADA nor its regulations “contemplate that an employer should be required to provide a disabled employee with medical treatment in order to restore her ability to perform essential job functions.” Caraballo, 237 N.J. at 270 quoting Desmond v. Yale-New Haven Hosp., Inc., 738 F.Supp. 2d 331, 350 (D. Conn. 2010). Likewise, the Caraballo Court looked at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s compliance manual, which states that “an employer has no responsibility to monitor an employee’s medical treatment or ensure that s/he is receiving appropriate treatment because such treatment does not involve modifying workplace barriers.” Caraballo, 237 N.J. at 269; Desmond, 738 F. Supp. 2d. at 350 quoting EEOC Enforcement Guidance: Reasonable Accommodation and Undue Hardship Under the Americans with Disabilities Act, EEOC Compliance Manual § 92, No. 915.002 (Oct. 17, 2002). Accordingly, the Caraballo Court held that the double knee replacement surgery sought by Plaintiff Caraballo was neither a modification to the work environment nor a removal of workplace barriers. Rather, “it was a means to treat or mitigate the effects of his injuries, like the treatments at issue in Desmond. We therefore find it consistent with the LAD, the ADA, and their regulations that Caraballo’s total knee replacement surgery cannot qualify as a reasonable accommodation under the LAD.” 237 N.J. at 271.

In ruling against Caraballo, the Court took note of the fact that although Caraballo requested his employer to provide him with double knee replacement surgery, he never used the enforcement mechanism of filing a petition in the workers compensation court to seek entry of an order compelling the employer and its insurer to provide him the surgery. Specifically, he refused to comply with his employer’s requests to see doctors that could “determine unequivocally whether or not he could have surgery.” 237 N.J. at 260. When the employer’s chosen doctor authorized Caraballo’s knee surgery and told him to schedule a surgery date, he never called. Id. at 261. Even though Caraballo contacted his employer’ “several times to obtain authorization for double knee replacement surgery [he] never sought to enforce his right to the surgery in the workers’ compensation court.” Id. at 258. Each time he disagreed with what was offered by his employer or refused to comply with their requirements to receive treatment, he failed to file a complaint with the workers’ compensation court. Therefore, regardless of the Court’s ruling that an employer was under no obligation under the LAD to reasonably accommodate a worker by providing him or her with medical treatment, Caraballo’s failure under the WCA to compel the surgery was fatal to his LAD claim. 237 N.J. at 266.

It can generally be said that before you can recover money for an injury someone else needs to be found at fault for causing the injury. However, when you suffer an injury at work, the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation Act N.J.S.A. 34:15-36, requires employers to “insure” workers, regardless of fault, by providing eligible employees with authorized medical treatment, temporary disability payments, and permanent partial disability payments for job-related injuries or illnesses. In exchange for these non-fault related benefits, employees are subject to a workers compensation bar preventing them from being able to sue their employer in court for economic loss and “pain and suffering” damages caused by work related injuries. Millison v. E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., 101 N.J. 161 (1985). However, if an employer intentionally causes an employee’s injury, then the employee may be able to their employer in court for all common law personal injury damages. See N.J.S.A. 34:15-8. (Finding that “a person shall not be liable . . . except for intentional wrong.”)

In Laidlow v. Hariton Machinery Co. Inc., 170 N.J. 602 (2002), the New Jersey Supreme Court explained that certain circumstances can exist which would result in an injury being deemed intentionally caused even though the employer did not directly intend to harm the employee. Id. Laidlow laid down a two-pronged test where the employer is held liable as if it intended the injury to occur. Id. at 617. First, based on the circumstances there must be a substantial certainty that injury will occur, and second, the circumstances resulting in this injury cannot be standard industry practice. Id.

The burden to demonstrate a “Laidlow claim” can be a difficult one to achieve given the need of the employee to show that the circumstances surrounding the injury were beyond the everyday risks of the job, or that performing the job in the manner required by the employer would almost certainly result in injury. For example, in Van Dunk v. Reckson Associates Realty Corp., et al., 2012 N.J. LEXIS 678 (decided June 26, 2012) and recently in Madkiff v. Frazier-Simplex, Inc., No. A-1328-15T1, 2017 N.J. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 419, at *1 (App. Div., decided Feb. 23, 2017) the courts found that even though the respective supervisors of these plaintiffs knowingly allowed the employees to place themselves in a potentially harmful situation, the workers compensation bar could not be overcome because it was not proven that it was virtually certain an injury would occur to the plaintiffs under the circumstances presented.

Articles Posted in Workers Compensation

THE WORKERS COMPENSATION BAR MAY BE PIERCED WHEN THE EMPLOYEE’S WORK INJURY RESULTS FROM THE EMPLOYER’S INTENTIONAL CONDUCT