What New Orleans Taught Me • Hacker News Board

Post by MisterBastahrd » Tue, May 06, 2025, 5:12 PM UTC

Kon-Peki wrote: post #60

MisterBastahrd wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sat in a jury for a civil lawsuit between an employee, a company, and the insurer for the company. Guy was driving a company vehicle for work and got T-boned on a rural highway by some kids riding through cane fields. His line of work was cleaning those giant shipping vessels, which requires you to climb about 60 feet vertically. Well, the company didn't want to pay more for insurance, so they tried to get the guy…

> they tried to get the guy to take a foreman gig so they could skimp on his payout. That’s federal law; nothing to do with the company or New Orleans. Glossing over a lot of nuance, but if you can offer the person what amounts to a lifetime (or at least long-term???) job at the same or better pay that they can reasonably do with their new disability, there is no standing for a workers comp claim.

The hell it doesn't. They didn't accommodate his new disability. The foreman on the crew had to make the same climb in the same gear, they just weren't doing the cleaning. This is a guy who tore and broke every joint and bone in both legs and had two separate locations where they had to fuse his spine.

They wanted to offer him the job so they could fire him for not performing because they didn't want their premium to increase.