After a workplace hand, wrist or finger injury, “my hand is better” may leave an important question unanswered: better at which task? Typing, fastening a button and using a powered tool place different demands on the hand. A useful record describes the actual difficulty and preserves the provider’s findings without trying to diagnose the problem […]
Workers’ compensation generally does not require an employee to prove ordinary employer negligence. A separate North Carolina provision can adjust compensation when specified willful safety conduct causes the injury or death.
A safety citation, hazardous condition, or rule violation does not automatically produce a G.S. 97-12 increase; the record must identify the applicable statutory requirement or Commission order, willful employer failure, and causal connection to the injury or death.
Read the exact G.S. 97-12 ground
G.S. 97-12 provides a 10 percent increase when injury or death is caused by an employer’s willful failure to comply with a statutory requirement or lawful Industrial Commission order. The statute separately addresses a 10 percent reduction for specified willful employee safety conduct and places the burden on the party claiming the exemption or forfeiture.
- Quote the statutory requirement or Commission order allegedly violated and show that it applied to this employer, equipment, task, and date
- Identify the required act, actual condition, responsible people, notice or knowledge, prior correction opportunity, and conduct alleged to be willful
- Connect the failure to the event sequence and injury rather than relying on a violation unrelated to how the accident occurred
- State the compensation category and period to which the requested increase or reduction is alleged to apply
Preserve the safety record from original sources
- Equipment, machine guarding, lockout, maintenance, inspection, training, personal protective equipment, warning, and operating records
- Written safety program, cited requirement, Commission order, employer rule, employee acknowledgment, language access, and enforcement history
- Incident report, photographs, video, scene measurements, damaged components, alarms, control data, and chain of custody
- Witness identities, first-hand observations, prior complaints, near misses, repair requests, supervisor instructions, and later corrections
- Agency inspection, citation, contest, settlement, findings, abatement, and the underlying evidence rather than only a news summary
Separate a regulatory finding from Commission proof
A safety agency and the Industrial Commission can address different legal questions, parties, evidence, procedures, and remedies. Preserve agency material, but do not assume a citation or lack of citation decides willfulness, causation, compensability, or a G.S. 97-12 adjustment.
Likewise, an employer’s internal rule is not automatically the statutory requirement referenced by the employer-increase provision. The employee-reduction language has its own conditions involving a safety appliance, statutory duty, or employer rule approved by the Commission and brought to the employee’s knowledge.
Address competing causal explanations
Reconstruct the task, sequence, machine or environment, controls, training, supervision, worker conduct, and physical mechanism. Distinguish a condition that existed from the condition that caused the event. Preserve evidence relevant to an asserted intoxication, controlled-substance, intentional-injury, safety-appliance, or rule defense without assuming an allegation is established.
Keep other claim paths separate
The ordinary compensation claim still requires proof of a covered injury or disease and applicable benefits. A regulatory enforcement matter may proceed separately. A claim against a legally distinct third party may involve fault, damages, insurance, lien, and consent issues beyond G.S. 97-12. Do not combine the records or release one path accidentally while resolving another.
The related workers’ compensation witness guide explains how to map first-hand observations, records, credibility, medical testimony, and hearing preparation to a disputed issue.
Rosensteel Fleishman Car Accident & Injury Lawyers provides information about discussing an employer safety-violation issue with a Charlotte workers’ compensation attorney. The review should start with the exact legal duty, original safety record, event sequence, causation, and requested adjustment.
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