5 Wacky Workers Comp Cases

With the holidays drawing near and the inevitable holiday party injuries looming, we thought it would be rewarding to look up the craziest worker’s compensation cases we could find, to share with you all. And if your company throws a party, keep in mind that any injuries sustained may be a potential worker’s compensation case. Merry Montagna, Hampton Roads!

1. Company Christmas parties can get pretty wild, but when that company is a zoo, all bets are off. When a meercat expert and a monkey handler fall for the same llama keeper, the claws really come out. This unusual love triangle took a violent turn at the holiday party, when the meercat expert attacked the monkey handler with a wine glass! Drink responsibly, folks.
2. A woman brought her cat on an international flight…in her purse. When the feline (predictably) began to screech and meow, the flight attendants had to lock the poor creature in the bathroom. The cat lady in question became so enraged that she punched a flight attendant, who was sent to Urgent Care with a bloody nose after the plane landed. Imagine reporting that workplace injury! We have a new-found respect for flight attendants.
3. Las Vegas, land of unnatural beauty, has more than a few odd skeletons in it’s closet. In a spa featuring Cryotherapy as an age defying treatment, one employee made a fatal mistake in deciding to try out the merchandise. She was later found inside the cryotherapy unit, frozen solid. This case has a twist: the facility in question was unable to provide proof of worker’s compensation insurance, and was ordered to close.
4. A Circuit City employee filed for worker’s comp after failing to retrieve a bag of chips from a vending machine. Stay with us, here; the man was trying to impress a female co-worker, whose chips had gotten stuck. His attempts to shake the bag loose resulted in a broken hip, and we can only assume a pity date. The man actually won his case, on the grounds that he was injured while “coming to the aid of a co-worker.”
5. A J.C. Penney employee was awarded compensation after tripping over her own dog, in her own house. Since she’d stored fabric samples in her garage, her home was ruled a “working environment,” and when she tripped on her way to retrieve them, she was injured while working.

We hope you’ve enjoyed our wacky worker’s compensation cases, and invite you to share any of your own on our Facebook page! If you find yourself injured in an absurd workplace situation, don’t hesitate to call the skilled professional attorneys at Montagna Law Firm in Norfolk, VA. We handle worker’s comp in Virginia and North Carolina, and we offer a free consultation to anyone who calls. Why wait?