An injury is work related in Wisconsin workers’ compensation law when a traumatic accident causes a low back or neck injury or job duties over time cause what is called an occupational disease or condition. Wis. Stats. Sec. 102.10
A work accident is “a fortuitous event, unexpected and unforeseen by the injured person.” John H. Kaiser Lumber Co. v. Industrial Comm’n, 181 Wis. 513 (1923) . This definition is satisfied “either if the cause was of an accidental character or if the effect was the unexpected result of routine performance of the claimant’s duties.” School Dist. No. 1 v. DILHR, 62 Wis. 2d 370 (1974).
To be work related, an injury must occur while the employee is “performing service growing out of and incidental to his or her employment,” Wis. Stat. § 102.03 or while the employee is in the course of his or her employment. “The Workman’s Compensation Act must be liberally construed in favor of including all service that can in any sense be said to reasonably come within it.” Brienen v. Public Serv. Co., 166 Wis. 24 (1917). “When it is established that employees have entered upon the performance of their duties and are found at a place where they might properly be in the discharge of those duties, nothing appearing to the contrary, the presumption of continuity obtains.” Tewes v. Industrial Comm’n, 194 Wis. 489 (1927).
A work related occupational disease is mental or physical harm that results from occupational exposure but is not so sudden or traumatic as to fit within the definition of an accident. Gumieny v. County Concrete Corp., WC Claim No. 2004-017501 (LIRC July 11, 2006). Wisconsin has not statutorily included or excluded any occupational disease from its worker’s compensation benefit provisions. To be work related, an occupational condition must have developed due to work in the workplace and that the correlation between the work and the condition or disease is well known in medical research. An occupational disease is identified when it is shown that it is more prevalent in a given body of workers than in the general population.
A work related condition often is a combination of traumatic incidents and job duties over time. At McCormick Law Office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin our attorneys and paralegals comb the medical and employment records that are honest and trustworthy to help find evidence of work related injuries or conditions and get the best settlements. Believe in better.
