When Barbara Bossenmeyer was accidentally shot by an Orange County Sheriff sergeant while working at her desk in John Wayne Airport, family and friends were quick to reassure her that all her bills and any complications would be taken care of.
A Voice of OC investigation found when county employees are injured by the sheriff’s department, they can’t get information on what happened to the officers involved and they can’t sue the department under state law.
[Read: Former County Employee Accidentally Shot by Sheriff’s Deputy Wants Answers on What Happened to Her]
“Everybody was like, ‘Oh you’ll be well taken care of,’” Bossenmeyer said, adding, “That’s not the truth.”
When she looked at suing the sheriffs’ department, her lawyers told her that wasn’t an option.
Under California’s worker’s compensation laws, employees can’t sue their employers when they’re injured at work in most cases according to the state’s Department of Industrial Relations’ guide for injured workers.
In exchange, employers are required to have worker’s comp insurance and to pay for their injured employees’ medical bills as they come in, instead of wading through years of civil litigation to decide who picks up the tab.
Employees also don’t have to prove their employer was at fault in order to get the money, just that they were injured at work.
The arrangement was billed as the “Great Compromise,” when it passed in 1917, but since then there’s been a fight between employees and employers...
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