Ohio Workplace Violence: When Your Employer Fails to Protect You
You show up to work expecting a normal day. Instead, a coworker attacks you. A customer becomes violent. A former employee comes back looking for someone. A patient, visitor, vendor, or other third party assaults you while you’re doing your job.
After experiencing workplace violence, report the incident promptly and seek medical attention. Additionally, consulting with a legal professional can help you understand your rights and the best steps to protect your interests moving forward.
One of the first questions you may have is whether your employer should have prevented it. Maybe there had been previous threats. Other employees had complained. Management knew a customer had become violent before. Security procedures existed but weren’t followed.
Those facts can matter, but Ohio law makes workplace injury cases more complicated than simply asking whether your employer was negligent.
If you were hurt in an act of workplace violence, you may have a workers’ compensation claim and, depending on exactly what happened and who was involved, other legal issues may need to be considered as well.
Workplace Violence Can Take Many Forms
Workplace violence doesn’t only mean an active shooter or another extreme event.
OSHA describes workplace violence broadly as acts or threats of physical violence, harassment, intimidation, and other threatening disruptive behavior that occurs at a worksite. It can involve employees, customers, patients, visitors, contractors, or other people who come into contact with workers.
The circumstances of your injury matter, and recognizing your experience can help you understand how the law applies to your situation.
An assault may happen during an argument between coworkers. A patient may attack a healthcare employee. A customer may assault a retail worker. An employee may be injured while trying to stop a violent incident involving someone else.
Whether workers’ compensation applies depends on the relationship between the injury and the employee’s work, so you need to examine the facts carefully.
Your Employer Does Have Workplace Safety Responsibilities
Employers must provide safe workplaces, but those obligations must be described accurately.
No federal OSHA standard specifically addresses workplace violence. However, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Act’s General Duty Clause requires employers to provide workplaces free from recognized hazards that cause or are likely to cause death or serious physical harm.
OSHA explains that the General Duty Clause can apply in workplace-violence cases when a recognized hazard exists, and a feasible way to reduce it exists.
That makes prior warning signs important.
Had the person made threats before? Were previous violent incidents reported? Did management know employees were concerned about a particular person or situation? Was violence a recognized risk associated with the workplace or type of work? Were reasonable protective measures available?
Those questions can matter when evaluating workplace safety.
OSHA also recommends workplace-violence prevention measures such as policies covering employees and third parties, employee training, hazard assessments, reporting procedures, and prompt incident investigation.
While workers’ compensation provides benefits for workplace injuries, you might wonder if you can pursue additional legal claims against your employer for negligence or failure to prevent violence. Understanding when you can pursue such claims can help you explore all your legal options.
That’s where Ohio workers’ compensation law becomes especially important.
Workers’ Compensation Is Usually the Starting Point
If an assault causes an injury in the course of and arising out of your employment, you may be entitled to Ohio workers’ compensation benefits.
Those benefits can include medical treatment related to an allowed injury and compensation for certain types of lost wages or disability when you meet the statutory requirements.
Workers’ compensation is generally a no-fault system. You ordinarily don’t have to prove that your employer negligently caused the injury to pursue benefits.
That’s important after workplace violence because the person who attacked you may have caused the immediate injury even though the incident happened while you were working.
But not every assault that happens at work automatically becomes a compensable workers’ compensation claim. The connection between the assault and the employment can matter.
For example, an attack arising from circumstances connected to the employee’s work raises a different legal question than a purely personal dispute that spills into the workplace.
That distinction can become a central issue in a disputed claim.
Can You Sue Your Employer for Failing to Protect You?
This is where the original version of this article would have given injured workers the wrong impression.
In Ohio, employers that comply with the workers’ compensation system generally receive immunity from ordinary lawsuits seeking damages for employee injuries sustained in the course of, or arising out of, employment.
In other words, you generally cannot turn a workers’ compensation injury into a separate negligence lawsuit against your employer simply by arguing that management should have done more to prevent it.
Ohio does recognize claims for employer intentional torts, but the standard is extremely demanding.
Under Ohio Revised Code Section 2745.01, an employee generally must prove the employer acted with intent to injure or believed injury was substantially certain to occur. The statute defines “substantially certain” as involving deliberate intent to cause injury.
That’s far different from proving that an employer made a bad decision, ignored a risk, or acted negligently.
Whether the facts surrounding a workplace attack support a claim outside workers’ compensation requires careful analysis. You shouldn’t assume it just because an employer had some warning that violence might occur.
What If Someone Other Than Your Employer Was Responsible?
A workplace injury can sometimes involve another person or business that isn’t protected by your employer’s workers’ compensation immunity.
Suppose an employee is injured because of conduct involving a separate contractor, property owner, security company, vendor, or another third party. Depending on what happened, there may be questions about whether someone outside the employer-employee relationship bears legal responsibility.
These are often called third-party claims.
They matter because workers’ compensation benefits and a potential claim against an outside party operate differently. A third-party claim may allow recovery of damages not available through workers’ compensation, but its existence and value depend on the facts and applicable law.
Don’t assume every workplace assault creates a third-party lawsuit.
You need to examine the attacker’s identity, why the incident occurred, the relationship between the parties, and what other individuals or businesses did or failed to do.
What About Emotional and Psychological Injuries?
Violence can leave injuries that aren’t visible.
Someone who has been assaulted may experience anxiety, nightmares, fear of returning to work, post-traumatic stress symptoms, or other psychological effects long after physical injuries begin to heal.
Ohio workers’ compensation law treats psychiatric conditions differently from physical injuries.
Under Ohio Revised Code Section 4123.01, psychiatric conditions generally aren’t included within the definition of a compensable “injury” unless they arise from an injury or occupational disease sustained by the claimant. Ohio law also contains a separate provision involving psychiatric conditions arising from sexual conduct in which the claimant was forced by threat of physical harm to participate.
That makes the medical evidence and incident circumstances especially important when psychological conditions become part of a workers’ compensation claim.
If you’re experiencing psychological symptoms after a violent physical injury, tell your medical providers what you’re experiencing rather than assuming those symptoms don’t matter.
Evidence Can Disappear Quickly
After an attack, getting medical care and protecting yourself come first.
Once you’re safe, preserving information about what happened can become important.
Write down what you remember while it’s still fresh. Identify anyone who witnessed the incident. Save relevant texts, emails, voicemails, or other communications. If you previously reported threats or dangerous behavior, preserve whatever documentation you have of those reports.
There may also be evidence you don’t personally control, including security-camera footage, internal incident reports, personnel records, visitor logs, prior complaints, police records, and communications among supervisors or managers.
Some of that information may later become important in determining what happened and whether another party has legal responsibility.
Don’t put yourself at risk or violate workplace rules trying to obtain records you aren’t entitled to access. An attorney can determine what evidence may be relevant and how to preserve or obtain it legally.
Report the Injury and Get Medical Care
Don’t assume everyone knows an incident occurred just because it happened at work.
Report the injury through the appropriate workplace process as soon as reasonably possible. Explain what happened accurately and identify the injuries or symptoms you’re experiencing.
Get appropriate medical attention as well. Medical records created close to the incident can document your injuries, symptoms, treatment, and how the condition develops over time.
If police responded, keep information related to the police report. If they didn’t respond but the incident involved criminal conduct, consider whether and how to report it to law enforcement.
Most importantly, don’t minimize an injury because you’re worried about creating problems at work. A condition that seems manageable immediately after an assault can look very different several days later.
Don’t Assume You Know Which Claim You Have
Workplace violence cases can sit at the intersection of workers’ compensation, workplace safety law, intentional-tort law, and potential third-party liability.
That’s why seemingly similar incidents can produce very different legal outcomes.
An employee assaulted by a customer while performing job duties may face one set of issues. An attack caused by a purely personal dispute may raise another. An injury involving a separate contractor or other outside business may create additional questions. Evidence that an employer knew of previous threats may be relevant, but it doesn’t automatically eliminate Ohio’s workers’ compensation immunity.
The important thing is not to decide on your own that you either definitely have a lawsuit or definitely don’t.
Get the facts evaluated under the law that actually applies.
After Workplace Violence, Find Out What Ohio Law Allows
No employee expects to become the victim of violence simply by going to work.
If it happens, you may suddenly be dealing with medical treatment, time away from work, financial pressure, fear about returning, and questions about why the incident wasn’t prevented.
You deserve accurate answers about your options.
Attorneys Bruce Taubman and Brian Taubman represent injured Ohioans and can evaluate how workers’ compensation and other potential claims may apply to the circumstances of a workplace assault.
If you’ve been injured in an act of workplace violence, contact Taubman Law to discuss what happened and what legal options may be available.
