Meaning of “Injury by accident” under NC Workers’ Compensation Law

Most people think that ANY injury at work gives them workers’ compensation benefits – WRONG!

In order to have a compensable worker’s compensation claim in NC, you MUST suffer what’s called an “injury by accident.” There are some exceptions to this rule (back injuries, hernias, occupational diseases, and a few more) but that’s for later posts.

Or course, there are also other elements necessary to constitute a valid worker’s compensation claim, but once again, those are for later posts.

How do you define “Accident?”  Try this: definite event which can be fixed by time and place.  It’s NOT something that gradually develops over time.

Case law states that accidents”…occur when the work routine has been interrupted and unusual conditions are created, which are likely to produce unexpected consequences.”

It’s NOT the usualness that’s important, but the UNEXPECTEDNESS of the event that helps to make it deemed an accident.

Swindell v. Davis Boat Works, Inc.is a big case in this vein.  Its rule is that normal work (even if strenuous) doesn’t  make an accident.  In this case, a man working on a factory floor was walking and sidestepped an employee and his knee was injured.  This was held eventually to not be an accident.  This was just a normal thing that he does at work and outside of work, it wasn’t unexpected or unusual.

Unusual conditions help. In Gaddy v. Cranston Print Works Co. an employee was injured doing the routine job of another employee, NOT his job.  This was held to be compensable because doing someone else’s job, not your own, is unusual/unexpected.

I like to use this example as further illustration:

• Walking up stairs, knee gives way = NOT an accident because nothing unusual about walking up stairs at work (or at home, or at the mall…)
• Walking up stairs and STAIR gives way = accident because it’s UNEXPECTED that the stairs would give way.

Clients are often blindsided by this because they think comp covers EVERYTHING at work.  It DOESN’T!!!!

When reporting your claim, it is VERY important that you make sure the incident is described as an accident (assuming it was in fact an accident).

Of course, there are exceptions to every rule:

• Back injuries = specific traumatic incident
• Hernias = same
• Intentional assaults – not accident, but as long as dispute is over work, OK.

As I mentioned earlier, we’ll talk about this stuff in a future post.

Thanks again for looking at this. And remember, if you have a work injury claim, call me! I’ll do what I can to help.