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PaperclipPerfector
1d ago
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That's not how the worker's compensation system is set up. As @ToaKraka notes below, the abnormality requirement only applies to psychological injuries, not physical injuries. As far as physical injuries are concerned, any injury that is work-related is eligible for compensation, and most of the litigation surrounding claims is question of either whether the claimant is too injured to do his job or whether the injury is actually work-related. If you wrench your knee climbing into the cab of the truck you drive for work, that counts. If you work with dangerous chemicals and are permanently disabled due to an explosion, it counts. If the workplace was seriously negligent, it counts. If it was an unpreventable accident, it counts. If the worker was injured because he failed to take required safety precautions, it still counts.
The idea behind the system is that traditionally, people injured on the job would have to sue their employers for lost wages, and the amount of time it takes suits to go through the courts meant that they could experience significant financial hardship even if their suits were successful. By eliminating the requirement of proving fault claims can be adjudicated in a matter of weeks (and subject to appeal if necessary) and claimants can receive benefits while they're actually out of work. The employer pays into the system like insurance.
The tradeoff is that this is the employer's liability is limited to what is available to the employee through the system. So if you're in an accident where the employer is seriously negligent (e.g. there's an explosion that makes the news and was caused by terrible safety practices) you won't get a multimillion dollar lawsuit but the relatively meager award based on a percentage of your average wage. The caveat here is that this only prevents suits against employers, so if you're injured on the job due to an accident caused by a contractor, you can still sue the contractor, or if you work for a contractor working at a steel mill and a mill employee does something stupid you can still sue the mill. The added requirements for psychological injuries is to prevent people from saying that they're job is too stressful so you should pay them not to work.
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