Last week, the Kansas Supreme Court joined the ranks of over twenty other states in recognizing that innocent victims of horseplay in the workplace may be entitled to workers’ compensation. Coleman v. Armour Swift-Eckrich, Kan., No. 94, 324 3/2406.
The case involves a plaintiff who leaned back in her chair while waiting for a meeting to start. The chair, of course, had little wheels on the bottom. Suddenly, it was like the plaintiff was back in fourth grade—a colleague grabbed the chair, and the plaintiff hit the floor (see image above). Who says work’s no fun?
The state administrative law judge denied the plaintiff’s claim for workers’ compensation. In so doing, the judge relied on a decision from 1918 which, until now, was the last word on the subject in Kansas. To give you some idea of the vintage of that decision, it involved a laborer who “playfully threw mortar into the eye” of a coworker. (Happens all the time around here at the law firm.)
The Kansas Supreme Court reversed, thereby aligning itself with the modern trend in this goofy area of workers’ compensation law. If you’re an employer, nail those chairs to the floor before it’s too late. And if you haven’t done so already, make sure all that extra mortar is under lock and key.
Tell us what you think. Should employees who are injured at work because of the horseplay of another employee, and not because of physically unsafe working conditions, be entitled to worker's comp? How far should an employer have to go to prevent this horseplay? What's reasonable? Click here to add a comment and speak your piece.