In a post-pandemic world, work-from-home and hybrid work arrangements have become the norm in many industries. While employers and employees have become adept at hosting Zoom and Teams meetings, this significant uptick in remote work begs the question: What if an employee gets injured while at home? Is this covered by workers’ compensation? If so, when? The answer, as it so often is, is it depends.
As we all know, workers’ compensation laws protect both workers and employers, giving both predictable benefits without protracted litigation. Workers’ compensation benefits generally cover injuries that arise out of or occur in the course of employment. Historically this meant injuries that actually happened on a job site or in the office. In today’s remote work world, however, many employees work from home full time or at least part time and their “on the job” injuries may actually occur in their home.
Every state has its own laws on what qualifies as a work-related injury, and the analysis can be very fact specific. For example, what about an employee who slips and falls while getting some coffee on a work break? In Sedgwick CMS v. Valcourt-Williams , a Florida court found that the injuries of an employee who tripped over her dog while reaching for a coffee cup in her kitchen while she worked from home did not arise out of her employment and therefore were not compensable under Florida’s workers’ compensation law. The court found that, even though the...
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