In North Carolina, if an employer willfully fails to comply with any statutory requirement or an order of the Industrial Commission, an employee’s injury compensation is increased ten percent. If however an employee is injured because he willfully violated a safety rule set by the employer, then his injury compensation will be reduced if (1) the rule or regulation has been approved by the Industrial Commission’s Safety Education Director AND (2) he knew about the rule. N.C. General Statute 97-12.
For an employer’s adopted safety rules or regulations to be approved by the Industrial Commission, the employer must submit them to the Safety Education Director for review. The Safety Director will then review the rules and approve them if they comply with the general provisions of the safety rules outlined by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) AND The Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA). 04 NCAC 10A. 0411.
The burden of proof is on the party who claims an exemption or forfeiture under N.C. General Statute 97-12.
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[…] from workers’’ compensation law. Our colleagues at The Jernigan Law Firm in North Carolina recently discussed in a blog post how employer violations of safety rules could lead to increases in benefits, while employee […]