Can my employer make me sign away my workmans comp rights?

January 6, 2016 2:59 PM

I work for a small business - a small chain of used bookstores. Recently, I broke my ankle. It was a home accident; I took a week off & then went back to work with a boot on my foot, crutches and a mobility knee scooter. My boss now wants me to sign a 2 page document in deepest legalese which, as far as I can tell, releases them from all liability of any kind if I hurt myself further by working while injured OR hurt anyone else (by running them over with my scooter?) This document would appear to never expire & says that I can never claim workmans comp, or, interestingly, that if I should die, my heirs cannot sue them. It also says that if I don't sign it they want me to go on unpaid leave until I am fully recovered. Under the ADA, aren't they supposed to make allowances for me? I am not asking them to pay for anything or even provide anything.

I don't see how this can possibly be legal. I am also very upset. I'm a full time employee; I've worked there for about 4 1/2 years and I think I am good at my job. I am in charge of half the store, I order all the new books we sell, buy used books, train all the new employees, etc, etc. My feelings are really hurt that they would think what, that I would use an injury - which I never claimed was work related! - to weasel money out of them?

I cannot afford to take weeks of unpaid leave. I live paycheck to paycheck and it is very tight. They offered to let me take some of my 2016 PTO for the week that I did take off and I asked to take 3 days worth and go 2 days without pay. We get 15 days of PTO a year - and since we do not get holidays or weekends, etc, that is really not a lot. I used all mine up in 2015 on family crises (they don't offer bereavement leave either and 2015 was a truly terrible year for my family.)

TL/DR - should I sign this thing? Amend it - with at the very least an expiration date - and then sign it? Should I try to see if legal aid will help me? That might take weeks or months and I absolutely do not have the funds to just go see a lawyer. Should I just go on leave and.. I don't know, not pay my bills? I have a call in to my manager, this, by the way, came from the (absentee) owners and the district manager, not the store manager, who is a genuinely nice guy.

AND I have just been told that if I don't sign it I cannot return to work. So now there's that. They told me that ordinarily I would just be put on leave until I am fully recovered but they're "making an exception" and "being nice" by allowing me to work at all. Yay. Help, hivemind!

posted by anonymous to Work & Money (13 answers total)

This depends on your jurisdiction. I would contact a mod to amend this post with your location.
posted by furnace.heart at 3:06 PM on January 6, 2016

You're asking for legal advice, you need to contact a lawyer in your jurisdiction, not take legal advice from the internet.
posted by TheAdamist at 3:12 PM on January 6, 2016 [20 favorites]

Depending on how small your employer is, the ADA may not actually apply - the ADA only applies to businesses with 15 or more employees.

Your local jurisdiction may provide rights beyond what the ADA applies.

Ask MetaFilter is not able to provide the specific legal advice that you are asking for. Further, the answer to your question is entirely determined by the text of the agreement rather than your description of the document. Please refer to a lawyer for advice specific to your situation.
posted by saeculorum at 3:13 PM on January 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I'll leave it to someone else to address whether this kind of thing is legally allowed to begin with, but, assuming for a moment that it is, it's actually reasonable, looking at this from their POV, to say that if you hurt yourself further while on the job because of the boot, crutches and scooter, it's not their fault.

But, continuing under the same assumption, what you want this thing to say is that (a) once your ankle is back to normal (defined, say, by a doctor's note), this document expires, and (b) your worker's comp coverage remains in force for any other accident that might befall you in the course of your job. For example, if the ceiling falls down on you, and you are injured, that should be covered, because clearly it has nothing to do with your condition. On the other hand, if you fall off your scooter and further injure yourself, that's not covered.

Since (a) this is a temporary situation, and (b) workers comp is not a megabucks ticket (it limits the employer's liability to paying for treatment of workplace injuries and lost wages), I would just negotiate and the above provisions into the deal , sign it, and make sure that its expiration is documented once you're healed in a few weeks. If you can get some free/lowcost legal help to help you do that, great; but if not, that's how I'd handle it.
posted by beagle at 3:17 PM on January 6, 2016 [11 favorites]

You should consult a lawyer, but the only thing about this that I find alarming (I'm not a lawyer, this is not legal advice) is the fact that it extends in perpetuity.

It doesn't seem weird to me that your employer would want you to sign a document stating that the original injury did not occur at work, and the company is not liable for any further complications from your injury that present at work. Workers' comp is not for pre-existing injuries that are not work related. I mean, it's real legalistic, but if it's a small business in a field where workplace injuries are rare, I get your bosses' being kind of freaked out about it.

However, if your employer is worried that you're going to injure someone with your scooter (or whatever), they should give you seated tasks or (paid?) time off or arrange for you to not use potentially dangerous equipment at work. Not just expect you to sign your rights away.

Also, experiencing an unrelated non-workplace injury once shouldn't give them the right to have you sign away your right to worker's comp at any future time, regardless of circumstances, in perpetuity. That said, workers' comp laws vary by state, and a lot of states have extremely shady pro-employer laws in place.

I like beagle's advice a lot.
posted by Sara C. at 3:53 PM on January 6, 2016 [3 favorites]

LAWYER.
Worker comp lawyers work on contingeny. You pay no fees upfront to them and they take a percent of any recovery.
They all work that way because they represent those that take dangerous, low paid jobs where workers are often hurt.
Worker comp varies a lot state to state. So find your own attorney.

Don't talk to your employer. Don't talk to their doctors.
In most places it's illegal to fire you. Call the lawyer NOW.
posted by littlewater at 4:48 PM on January 6, 2016 [4 favorites]

I would contact a local legal aid organization; it's true that it might take weeks to get a response, but you might also hear back tomorrow and have an answer by the end of the week. If you don't know what organization to call, try googling "[your location] legal aid" and "[your location] employment rights."

You can certainly try contacting a worker's comp attorney - it's true that they generally work on contingency for no up-front cost - but it sounds like you don't have a current worker's comp case, you need legal advice related to your rights. A worker's comp attorney may not be able/willing to provide you with that advice for free.
posted by insectosaurus at 5:02 PM on January 6, 2016 [1 favorite]

Please contact a lawyer; your situation is not straightforward enough for us to help you much.
posted by SMPA at 5:38 PM on January 6, 2016

There should be either a local or state labor board that could answer your questions. At least in NC there's one.
posted by PJMoore at 5:41 PM on January 6, 2016

Also, legal aid organizations prioritize "about to get evicted" and "about to lose my job" cases; they will be able to say whether or not they can help at all within a few days as far as I remember.
posted by SMPA at 5:41 PM on January 6, 2016

You could also try calling a disability rights organization. In the US, every state has one or more "independent living center" that provides a variety of resource, including sometimes a link to a low-fee/pro bono ADA lawyer.
posted by metahawk at 6:08 PM on January 6, 2016

> It doesn't seem weird to me that your employer would want you to sign a document stating that the original injury did not occur at work, and the company is not liable for any further complications from your injury that present at work.

Unless the complications resulted from work activities - in many states.

An illustration of why not to seek advice on legal issues from the internet, and why consultation with a lawyer in your area is essential. An experienced, qualified lawyer, not legal aid or a “low-fee/pro bono” lawyer.
posted by yclipse at 8:09 PM on January 6, 2016

Absolutely seek independent legal advice so that you understand the document, but when you circle back with them I urge you to consider approaching the conversation with an open mind about their intentions and without your emotions. If they're being malicious then you're hosed regardless of what attitude you show up with, right? But if they aren't, if they mean well and bungled it, then if you show up on the defensive they might feel attacked and respond defensively, which you would then take to confirm your suspicion that they were being malicious.

That's my perspective as a person who goes out into the world and talks to people, but I also handle similar situations on the employer's side for a much larger company and want to explain why their action might not be malicious. From what I see your employer is not suddenly turning on you, they're just trying to protect themselves from assuming a major risk.

They told me that ordinarily I would just be put on leave until I am fully recovered but they're "making an exception" and "being nice" by allowing me to work at all.

If that is indeed their ordinary practice, this exception tells me that a) they do like you quite a lot, and b) they are probably not super familiar with the document they gave you. That's another great reason why seeking your own legal advice will be helpful: you might bring up issues they haven't noticed or didn't understand.

this, by the way, came from the (absentee) owners and the district manager, not the store manager, who is a genuinely nice guy

If the store manager gave this to you it would still come from the owners by way of the district manager. It doesn't matter where the owners are or what they're doing; they own the business and make money from it and want to continue to do so. It could be that the district manager and not the store manager gave this to you so that you felt like you could approach your manager with the questions and concerns - not to keep you from seeking legal advice but so that if you were upset you'd still have someone at the company you felt like you could go to.

I am also very upset. I'm a full time employee; I've worked there for about 4 1/2 years and I think I am good at my job.

I hear this every day and it's hard. I explain it to employees in terms of the risk of their situation and consistency of management. I left my former job at a muuuuch smaller business because the owners had no line between personal and business - "management by mood," we called it. In this situation they would absolutely let an employee of 2 years return to work because they love her and then tell a 4-year employee just months later that she needed to stay home until she was better just because they don't like her, providing some bullshit distinction to justify it. The fact that they are approaching this formally demonstrates great boundaries and professionalism, in my opinion.

My feelings are really hurt that they would think what, that I would use an injury - which I never claimed was work related! - to weasel money out of them ...I cannot afford to take weeks of unpaid leave. I live paycheck to paycheck and it is very tight.

You answer your own question. If you injure yourself at work as a result of this injury then you would have to take weeks of unpaid leave, which you can't afford to do. Not having money makes reasonable people scared and scared people do things that are bananas like trying to get money from their employer for an injury that wasn't work related. Because of something they had no part in, your being at work is exposing them to risk. They want you at work but they don't want the risk.

TL;DR
Above all else: they want you at work. Take that as a sign that they are coming into this with good intentions. The document might be all wrong and have no legal basis but if they were trying to screw you by doing something illegal they'd do that by firing you, they wouldn't take the long way by handing you some crackerjack contract and then bringing a potential accident into the workplace. I'm sorry for all this - the injury and the work mess - and I hope that you're able to work something out.
posted by good lorneing at 11:31 PM on January 6, 2016 [8 favorites]