Special Topics in Safety Management

Should Workers Who Break Safety Rules Collect WC Benefits?

By Chris Kilbourne Jan 26, 2011 Special Topics in Safety Management

Updated: Jan 26, 2011

Yesterday, we told you about a workers’ comp case in which an employee who initiated horseplay collected benefits. Today, we’ll describe a case in which an employee was injured because he ignored a safety rule

Before you say no to the questioned asked in the title of today’s report, read this case. You might be surprised at the outcome.

The employee worked in a warehouse picking orders. He used a picker machine to reach parts on high shelves. The picker had forks extending out from the platform to which a pallet was clamped to hold parts.

After the employee had been on the job for 18 months, the employer instituted a new safety rule, requiring employees to wear a safety harness when operating an order picker.

The employee’s supervisor demonstrated correct use of the harness and posted the following statement on each order picker:

No personnel will operate a picker without wearing a safety harness attached to the platform. There are NO exceptions to this rule!!!

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Employees Ignore Rule

Despite the training and the sign, employees often ignored the new rule. Harnesses were sometime unavailable, and the rule wasn’t enforced.

One day, the employee attached the pallet to the forks as usual and elevated the picker to a shelf 12 feet off the ground. He wasn’t wearing a harness. He also didn’t realize that the clamps holding the pallet failed and the pallet slid off. While getting parts off the shelf, the worker stepped back off the platform, thinking the pallet was there, and fell to the cement floor of the warehouse, sustaining a fractured rib and a punctured lung.

The employee filed for and received workers’ comp benefits over the employer’s objection because the company had failed to enforce its new rule.

The Message

You can’t just roll out a new safety rule, post a sign, and walk away.

Introduce rules at a safety meeting to make sure all affected workers get the same message at the same time, face-to-face.
Make sure workers have the information and equipment they need to follow safety rules.
Supervise closely after establishing a new rule.
Enforce safety rules consistently.

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Workers’ comp cases like this one and the one we described yesterday point to the need for consistent enforcement of safety policies to prevent injuries. They also indicate the need for effective safety training. Had the employees injured in these cases been better trained, they would not have acted the way they did and been injured.

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