Top 10 Bizarre Workers’ Compensation Cases
For more than a dozen years, Thomas A. Robinson has published his list of the Top 10 Bizarre Workers’ Compensation Cases. The list began more than 30 years ago by Professor Arthur Larson and has a decidedly national perspective.
Robinson observes:
As is the case with previous “Bizarre Lists,” I am ever mindful of the fact that while a case might be bizarre in an academic sense, it is actually intensely real for the participants and their families. These highlighted cases involve real injuries, some even fatal. Life has its bizarre moments and, since the workers’ compensation world is quite representative of the larger world around it, the cases we see each year sometimes have quirky fact patterns.
What follows is the first of 10 cases (with two bonus cases for an even dozen).
CASE #1: Falling Clipboard Results in Fatal Helicopter Crash (Idaho)
In a case with a particularly unusual and tragic fact pattern, the Supreme Court of Idaho affirmed a state trial court’s order granting summary judgment in favor of the Idaho Department of Fish & Game (IDFG), on exclusive remedy grounds, in a wrongful death action filed by the father of a pilot killed in a helicopter crash in a remote region of that western state. The pilot was employed by a small aviation company that had been contracted to fly two IDFG employees to the remote site to conduct a fish survey. The copter crashed, killing all three persons aboard. Evidence indicated that, just prior to the crash, one of the passengers became air sick and opened the helicopter door, dropping a clipboard in the process. The jettisoned clipboard struck and damaged the tail rotor of the helicopter, making it too unstable to fly. The Court agreed that IDFG was the pilot’s statutory employer and, as such, was immune from tort liability.
Krinitt v. Idaho Dep’t of Fish & Game, 398 P.3d 158 (Idaho 2017).
Read the entire article here.
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