Workers' comp ruling blasted

The case involved a 16-year-old KFC employee who was badly burned.
COLUMBUS (AP) -- Trial lawyers say an Ohio Supreme Court ruling that denied benefits to an employee hurt on the job sets a dangerous precedent by blaming the employee for the accident.
They say the decision violates a long-standing principle that injured employees should get workers' compensation benefits regardless of who was at fault.
"This is the worst anti-injured-workers decision I have seen in 26 years," said Philip Fulton, a veteran workers' compensation lawyer and past president of the Ohio Academy of Trial Lawyers. "It stabs at the heart of what the workers' compensation system is supposed to be all about, which is that it doesn't matter if it's the employer's or employee's fault."
The case decided Tuesday involved a 16-year-old employee of a KFC fast-food restaurant in Dayton who was burned badly in 2003 while washing out a pressure cooker.
The employee, David Gross, had been warned several times not to clean the cooker by boiling water in it, according to the ruling.
Gross began receiving temporary disability payments after the accident but had that claim terminated after the Louisville, Ky.-based corporation fired him in February 2004.
Reason for denying claim
In denying the claim, the state Industrial Commission said the fact Gross was fired for on-the-job misconduct was the equivalent under state workers' comp law of voluntarily leaving his job, thus disqualifying him for benefits.
As a result, the issue before the court was the effect of being fired on Gross' eligibility for those benefits.
"Gross was not fired because of absenteeism or any work rule or policy related thereto," the court said in an opinion jointly issued by five justices. "He was fired because he directly and deliberately disobeyed repeated written and verbal instructions not to boil water in the pressurized deep fryer and injuries followed."
Two other justices, Evelyn Lundberg Stratton and Paul Pfeifer, dissented.
"Our workers' compensation laws are intended to compensate a worker who suffers an industrial injury without a determination of fault or wrongdoing," Justice Lundberg Stratton wrote.
Blaming the worker for the accident "is contrary to worker's compensation principles, and we should not condone such actions," she said.
The Ohio chapter of the National Federation of Independent Business said the ruling won't undermine the state's no-fault system because it only affects employees who act outside the scope of their job descriptions.