Three years ago, Oklahoma changed its workers’ compensation laws by saying that a person has to be clocked in or injured on the premises for the benefits to kick in. But the Oklahoma Supreme Court is raising questions about what it means to be at work.
Last week, the state’s high court ruled 6-3 that Oklahoma State University-Oklahoma City employee Anette Legarde-Bober should receive benefits after slipping on ice in the parking lot in 2014. The 2013 changes to workers’ comp laws exempted people who were injured on their way to work, even those hurt in the parking lot, The Journal Record’s Dale Denwalt reports:
Justice Noma Gurich wrote in her majority opinion that the employer admitted in an injury report that Legarde-Bober fell on school property and not a “parking lot or other common area adjacent to an employer’s place of business.” “Because petitioner’s actions at the time of her injury were related to and in furtherance of the business of her employer OSU/OKC, and petitioner was on the premises of her employer when she fell, she was in the course and scope of her employment,” Gurich wrote.
The majority did not rule on constitutional issues, however, and only stuck to the facts of this particular case, leaving deeper constitutional questions unanswered.
From Denwalt:
Justices Tom Colbert and Joseph Watt agreed with the ruling but chastised the court for dismissing the petitioner’s claim that the law violates a person’s right to a legal remedy. Colbert wrote that the court continues to dodge the inevitable challenge to parts of the law that critics say violates due process. Workers’ comp attorney Bob Burke, who has challenged the 2013 law, said the opinions expressed in the Legarde-Bober decision hint that some justices are worried about injured workers finding a venue in district court, rather than through the workers’ comp’ system.
The petitioner had claimed that the new workers’ comp law was written in a way that would bar her from seeking a legal remedy for her fall.
“I believe this dissent shows that all nine members of the Supreme Court of Oklahoma believe that if the Legislature chooses to eliminate an injury from compensability, exclusive remedy rides off into the sunset and an Oklahoma business can be sued in district court for negligence,” Burke wrote in an analysis of the case provided to The Journal Record. “This ultimate conclusion is a significant problem for Oklahoma employers.” Burke said he believes the decision will be applied to other so-called parking lot cases already on appeal.
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