If I’m Working Remotely, Can I Still Make a Claim?

Personal Injury Attorney

With the pandemic ravaging the country, one major shift in the societal infrastructure is that it has become more common to see people work remotely. The idea is that if a job can be done online from home, a company will mandate that position be done remotely. This way, essential work can continue while satisfying quarantine measures and guidelines. Some jobs are completely online, while others are a hybrid of online work and physical work, requiring a level of manual labor. Suppose that you are injured during work at home while doing your job. Since this isn’t a typical office setting and is in fact the privacy of your own home, is it still possible to make a personal injury claim? You can, but only under the right conditions.

Conditions: Your claim must first be valid, and for it to be valid it would need to actually be related to your job. For example, stubbing your toe on your bedpost on your way to your desk isn’t a valid claim. So consider these questions before making a personal injury claim: Was the action that caused your injury approved by your employer? Was it beneficial to your employer? Did the job require this action be performed? If you answered yes to any of these questions, your claim will likely be valid, because it wouldn’t make a difference if the action was performed at the office/workplace or at home since it was part of the job. The potential of injury would always have been there, regardless of the location.

Does your company have workers’ compensation? Just about any place that has positions involving manual labor has a form of worker’s comp. If your company does, you likely signed a contract protecting them from lawsuits while giving you the benefit of a guaranteed payout for your injury. If you’re under contract, there are still ways to make a claim, but the conditions will be different. Say, for instance, for you to have a valid claim, your employer needed to have performed an intentional act that injured you.

Awareness: As a general condition, while working remotely you need to maintain regular communication with your employer. Just because you’re not in the same building anymore doesn’t mean that you can just do whatever you want to do and the courts will look favorably on this. If your employer is unaware that you are performing the action that caused your injury and the action didn’t serve to benefit your employer or the position, then you are culpable for committing this act and you can’t make a claim. 

Before you move forward, you may want to consider contacting a personal injury attorney, or an attorney at Patterson Bray.