Work-from-Home Injuries: An Overview of Your Rights and Responsibilities
Navigating the Gray Area: A Guide to Work-from-Home Injury Claims
It’s January 2020. We’re all gearing up for the new “Roaring Twenties” when a virus comes along and sends us into what feels more like the “Failing Thirties”. But there’s one new caveat that makes it all a little better: we can all work from home now!
No more waking up at 5 a.m. to drive into the office, no more exorbitant gas prices, and no more worrying about a deer waiting around the corner to jump out and total your car—or worse, you! Suits? Forget about them; most Zoom or phone calls won’t even reveal if you’re wearing pants, let alone a suit. Working from home is great—until it isn’t.
Unfortunately, work-related injuries can still happen. Whether in a cubicle or at your kitchen table, you can still get hurt while on the job. But what exactly constitutes a work-related injury at home versus a personal injury? Who is responsible if you trip and fall on your way to the coffee pot while working? Who is responsible for the carpal tunnel developing in your hands? Is the mental anguish you’re feeling due to the 40+ hours you spent working in your home office? Or is it from the dishes in the sink that keep piling up, which you still don’t have time to do but now have to stare at every day? Let’s talk about what constitutes a work related injury at home and who is legally responsible.
The Perils of the Coffee Break: When an At-Home Injury Becomes a Workers’ Comp Claim
Let’s first tackle break time injuries. Although some might feel that working from home is one long break where they can work as they please, you’re still legally obligated to take breaks.
Picture this: You’ve been grinding away on your computer since 7 a.m. You’re completely focused until about 10 a.m. when your stomach starts growling. You’re hungry, and your coffee cup is empty. This is the time you would take your mandated “coffee break” at the office to grab a snack and a refill.
There’s an ornamental rug in your kitchen; you know it’s there—you bought it, after all—and you see it and walk on it every day. Your dogs were just playing, and the rug is now a ruffled mess behind you. I think you can see where this is going. You get up, you trip on the rug, and now your wrist is broken. Can you claim workers’ comp?Under New York State law, yes! Your home has become your de facto workplace. This means that if the injury happened during the scope of regular business hours, falling and breaking your wrist on that now-hated ornamental rug is a work-related injury for which you can legally seek workers’ compensation. And if they refuse to give it to you, that’s when you need to consider contacting a workers’ compensation attorney. I’m not sure if you can go after the rug, but we can look into that as well.
Carpal Tunnel Syndrome: The Hidden Cost of Working from Home
What about wear and tear on the body?
You’re working from home, so it’s not like you’re doing heavy lifting. You’re in your slippers in your gamer chair, working on a computer that you spend equal amounts of time on scrolling social media or playing the latest games. Your knuckles are getting stiffer, your hands hurt more and more every day, and your quality of life is affected. You go to the doctor, get x-rays, and do the tests. Sure enough, the carpal tunnel syndrome you’ve been dreading for years is not only here, but it has also worsened.You go to claim workers’ compensation and now find yourself having to prove it wasn’t from the 20+ years of playing Mario and writing screenplays about the zombie apocalypse, but from the 20+ years of working 8-10 hour days typing up reports, writing news articles, or editing videos for your employer. Whatever the reason, it has come from work. What does this mean?
Do You have A Case?
Well, in good ol’ New York, it means you have a workers’ compensation case. Carpal tunnel is a repetitive stress injury, meaning it’s an injury from doing repetitive motion over and over again for long periods of time. In New York, that is classified as an occupational disease. Although more documentation and medical history are needed to prove this than for falling on the job and breaking your wrist, as long as the proof is there, you have a case for workers’ compensation and deserve due compensation!
Beyond Physical Injury: Claiming Mental Anguish While Working from Home
Let’s talk about mental health. Over the last few years, the topic of how work affects mental health has become very popular. Mental health days have become a common and necessary practice in the workforce. Plato once said, “Nothing in the affairs of men is worthy of great anxiety.” That includes work.
When you work from home, the boundaries disappear. Your 8-10 hour office day, where you could disconnect and leave work behind, is a distant memory. Now you’re trapped in your ugly yellow kitchen, a place you’ve always hated. This yellow room is no longer just for eating dinner; it’s your constant reminder of the report you didn’t finish and the one due tomorrow.
Your day used to end at 5 p.m., but now your boss contacts you before 9 a.m. and after 5 p.m. because you’re home anyway, right? Your 8-10 hour workday has ballooned into a consistent 12-14 hours. There are no boundaries, no off switch, and you finally break. Overworked and depressed, you loathe these walls now and suffer a complete mental breakdown.
Do you have a claim for mental anguish?
It’s a gray area reserved for extreme cases with ample proof. Historically, this was for first responders witnessing consistent traumatic events. It doesn’t apply to normal job stress from a poor performance review or a passed-over promotion.
You may have a workers’ compensation case if you can prove a pattern of highly stressful events like relentless harassment, inconsistent hours, and unreasonable demands. This is especially difficult for remote workers who lack witnesses and have blurred work-life boundaries. However, much like carpal tunnel, with enough evidence, you may have a claim and are due compensation. Because, of course, this is New York, and you deserve it!
Contact Mid-Hudson Injury Law to Fight for You
In closing, if you work from home and have been hurt on the job, you may be struggling to make a claim. Consider us a resource to link you to the professionals who can best help you.
Here are some additional resources on the topic: