a number of accidents on the job leading towards disability

#A number of accidents on the job leading towards disability trial

In the eyes of some courts, however, managers must consider the consequences of stress and develop programs to identify the symptoms of excessive stress before it leads to employee problems and litigation.Ī growing stream of research has confirmed the relation between workplace stressors and such illnesses as varying degrees of emotional distress without physical symptoms, cardiovascular conditions in various stages, gastrointestinal disorders, respiratory disorders and infection, and medication abuse.

The information overload about the consequences of stress has fostered a myth that the pervasiveness of stress defies rational management. While stress is an inevitable part of living and working, excessive pressure costs dearly in ill health, lost productivity, and increased personal problems. Job stress can cause physical illness and psychological disturbance with psychosomatic as well as physical changes. This article seeks to smooth the road by tracing the evolution of workmen’s compensation, examining several landmark cases-in which plaintiffs have won and lost-that have established standards, and offering a five-point program to help managers deal with the legal issues surrounding stress.

#A number of accidents on the job leading towards disability trial

The implementation of an effective program takes experience and will undoubtedly involve some trial and error. And it requires a thorough understanding and monitoring of case law regarding job-related stress. This kind of approach to the issue of job-related stress involves preventive law, in which traditional legal analysis and advanced management techniques blend to produce a company’s response to legal problems. Awareness of the legal implications of workplace stressors-stimuli that cause stress-will help managers initiate programs to reduce compensation costs, bad publicity, and the amount of potentially divisive litigation.

Whether they like it or not, managers must learn to deal with stress before they end up having to explain their lack of action in court. A survey of 40,000 women conducted by the National Association of Working Women found that 33 % of the respondents saw their jobs as very stressful, while 62 % of them reported their work as somewhat stressful. Employees have begun to believe in a link between workplace stress and illness.As the result of research, more of the medical community accepts a cause-and-effect relationship between workplace stress and such illnesses as heart disease, hypertension, upper respiratory infections, peptic ulcers, reduced immunity, migraines, depression, and suicidal tendencies.The California labor code, for example, allows compensation for injuries caused by “repetitive mentally or physically traumatic activities extending over a period of time, the combined effect of which causes any disability or need for medical treatment.” Increasingly, state workmen’s compensation laws specify compensation for injuries resulting from continued stress on the job.The enormous rise in employee compensation suits that cite stress as the source of emotional or physical disabilities is due not to an act of Congress or a ruling of the Supreme Court but rather to three trends. There is fair agreement with the present findings that serious disabilities occur in about 3% of inpatient hospital cases or in about 1% of total casualties.Managers can no longer choose whether to recognize and deal with the symptoms of stress on the job-it has become a legal obligation. Comparisons with other studies show rather wide variations in estimates of the incidence of slight disabilities. For given severities of injury, disabilities were less severe among young casualties. Different severities of disability were not closely correlated with Abbreviated Injury Scale (AIS), (ISS) or (PI) scores or with treatment periods but useful threshold values are described which separate groups with high and low rates of disability. Most of the serious disabilities were caused by head or lower limb injuries. This corresponds to the high relative frequency and severity of injuries among motorcyclists.

There were about equal numbers of disabled among pedestrians, motorcyclists and vehicle occupants. The disabilities incurred by 2502 road accident patients admitted in three separate years to an Accident Hospital have been analysed.