Analysis: Opponents of Oklahoma’s 2013 workers’ compensation reforms announced that a recent Pottawatomie County district court decision will result in denial of most workers’ compensation benefit claims and lead to endless lawsuits with uninsured judgments. It is true that the Duck vs. Morgan Tire case holds that only “unforeseen” accidents will result in benefit payments under the Oklahoma Administrative Workers’ Compensation Act.
With most employee injuries being at least somewhat foreseeable, legitimate concerns have been raised that compensation payments may be denied and injured workers would have to sue employers to recover damages. If workers’ compensation insurance policies do not respond (because there was no compensable injury) and general liability insurance policies do not respond, because they don’t apply to employee injury claims, then the employer could be faced with a huge uninsured liability.
