What Rights Do Workers Have When They Get Hurt On The Job?

This week’s question comes from Tracey F. in Hayward who writes: “My boyfriend works at Tesla’s manufacturing plant on the assembly line and is always in pain when he comes home. Often, he is required to work mandatory overtime and I have to give him a massage because his shoulders and arms hurt really bad.

People at Tesla are getting injured all the time. Last week a guy got rammed by a robot moving around the warehouse. It seems that while the robots are modern and can work all the time, the humans are just that, human, and they are getting worn out and hurt. Tesla is a tech company; shouldn’t they be able to do something with all that knowledge to protect the humans working in the facility? What rights do workers have when they get hurt?”

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Dual Employer Remedy Rule Deprives Workers Of Full Compensation For Their Injuries

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This week’s question comes from Ronald F. in Hercules, who writes: “I work for a security firm and have been a security guard for a number of years at a local mall. Recently, while making my rounds, I slipped and fell on a clear substance, badly injuring my back and hip. I presented my claim to my company, the security firm, which was accepted under its workers’ compensation policy. After learning that the spill was caused by a mall employee who worked at the information counter, I presented a claim to the mall. The mall is telling me I can’t bring a claim because I have workers’ compensation. But that is through my employer, and I do not work for the mall. What is going on?”

Ronald, you appear to be caught in the trap that is the workers’ compensation remedy rule. California’s workers’ compensation laws generally provide that workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy against an employer for an employee’s injury or death that arises during the course and scope of employment.

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California Labor Law: Take Time Off Work to Tour a Child’s School?

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Our question this week comes from Anna K. from The Avenues who asks: “I work for a company of about 30 people. I have to find a new school for my daughter because we will be moving to Daily City.  I need to go look during the work week because that’s when they have ‘open houses.’  I asked my foreman if I could take off a couple of hours to go tour the school with my daughter and she said ‘no.’  I told her I would use my vacation and she said that she couldn’t spare me this month.  What are my rights, if any, to do this very important thing for my daughter?”

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Injured on the Job: Workers Comp Claim or Personal Injury Lawsuit or Both?

As a result of lat week’s column on workers’ compensation, I received a great deal of positive feedback and further questions. As a follow-up, Vilma G. asks Q: “If a driver working for a trucking company was involved in an accident that seems to have not been his fault, I can understand if he does after the insurance of the person at fault. However, because of the driver’s injury being sustained in an accident while driving in the course of employment, can he be eligible to apply for workers’ compensation benefits?”
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Are you hiring workers? Prevent liability lawsuits

Ron T asks Q: One thing has always puzzled me with respect to negligence. For example, if you are stopped in your car and I rear-end you it’s my fault and I’m liable – that I understand. What I don’t understand is if I hire someone to clean the gutters on my house and that person falls off his ladder and gets hurt, how is that accident my fault when I had nothing whatsoever to do with his fall? Or if I hire a contractor to do a job at my house and one of his employees or workers gets injured; why am I responsible if the contractor failed to carry workers’ compensation?
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