Pennsylvania: Mother/Attendant Care Worker May Not Recover for Injuries Sustained When Son Attacked Her With Knife

A Pennsylvania woman who, pursuant to a state-funded program, was paid on an hourly basis to provide attendant care services for her thirty-three year old son who had significant health issues related to his long-term drug use, did not sustain an injury arising out of and in the course of her employment when she was attacked and brutally stabbed by her son as she slept in the bedroom of her house, held a divided Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. Reversing a divided Commonwealth Court decision, the majority of the high court indicated the Commonwealth Court’s use of the bunkhouse rule to establish the woman’s claim was improper. The majority noted in relevant part that under the bunkhouse rule an employer provides housing for the employee. Here the situation was reversed; the employee-mother owned the house and allowed her son to live there while he recuperated.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See O’Rourke v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (Gartland), 2015 Pa. LEXIS 2420 (Oct. 27, 2015) [2015 Pa. LEXIS 2420 (Oct. 27, 2015)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 24.03 [24.03]

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see http://www.workcompwriter.com/divided-pa-supreme-court-says-mothercaregivers-injuries-at-hands-of-knife-wielding-son-were-not-compensable/

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law.

For more information about LexisNexis products and solutions connect with us through our corporate site