Massachusetts Workers\u2019 Compensation Act, G.L. 152 \u00a7\u00a7 1-86 offers employers certain protections from qualified employee-prosecuted work-related negligence actions at common law.\u00a0 It does not protect employers from honoring contractual indemnification provisions to third parties upon proof that the injuries are attributable to the employer\u2019s negligence.<\/p>\n
The Massachusetts Workers\u2019 Compensation Act, G.L. 152 \u00a7\u00a7 1-86 (the \u201cAct\u201d), is intended to strike a balance between employee and employer rights in the context of workplace injuries, offering insurance compensation for to workers for personal injuries arising out of an in the course of employment. \u00a0\u00a0These benefits often consist of compensation for medical expenses and lost wages.\u00a0 The exclusivity provision of the Act prohibits an employee from collecting benefits from an insured employer or co-employee and seeking redress in the Courts unless said employee provides written notice of their intention to preserve common law tort remedies in lieu of Workers\u2019 Compensation benefits.\u00a0 \u00a0See <\/em>G.L. 152 \u00a7 24. \u00a0This provision applies to work-related negligence claims, not to intentional torts motived by something other than the employment at issue.\u00a0 In essence, a covered employee must opt to either insure his right to compensation from a covered employer if injured on the job, or take their chances in a court of law.\u00a0\u00a0 Given the no-fault nature of the Act, nearly every Massachusetts employee chooses to be covered rather than to litigate.<\/p>\n Commercial contracts between sophisticated entities commonly contain an indemnification provision.\u00a0 Generally, one party is performing services and the other is paying for them.\u00a0 The performing party agrees to assume liability for damages the paying party suffers due to the services the performing party has rendered.\u00a0 Put differently, if the performing party\u2019s execution of its contractual responsibilities results in the paying party defending litigation or other claims, the performing party agrees it is responsible for covering the cost.\u00a0 In addition to the actual damages the paying party is required or potentially required to pay, the performing party often also agrees to cover attorney\u2019s fees and other costs associated with the claim at issue.<\/p>\n What happens then when the performing party is an insured employer and the insured employer\u2019s employee sues the paying party for a work-related injury?\u00a0\u00a0 Massachusetts law preserves the rights of sophisticated parties to allocate risk through contractual agreements, while simultaneously insulating insured employers from common law claims in the context of work-related injuries.\u00a0 Even where the injured employee has not blamed his insured employer for the injuries suffered, a third party can successfully present evidence that the claimed damages are attributable to the employer\u2019s conduct.\u00a0 To avoid extensive motion practice on this issue, disciplined pleading is crucial to successfully invoking indemnification.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Massachusetts Workers\u2019 Compensation Act, G.L. 152 \u00a7\u00a7 1-86 offers employers certain protections from qualified employee-prosecuted work-related negligence actions at common law.\u00a0 It does not protect employers from honoring contractual indemnification provisions to third parties upon proof that the injuries are attributable to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":131,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,3,52,50,49],"tags":[2,9],"class_list":["post-175","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-contractual-indemnification","category-employment-law","category-general-contractor","category-indemnity","category-workers-compensation","tag-employees","tag-employers"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/131"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.apslaw.com\/on-the-job\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}