Hybrid work is becoming increasingly common. This is where companies allow people to work part of their time in a designated office space and the rest remotely. While traditional offices have certain liabilities when it comes to injuries, this hybrid environment can create confusion about who is at fault, as a personal injury lawyer can explain. For example, if a person is involved in a slip-and-fall accident in the parking lot of a café where an employee was going to work remotely, who is at fault? Since it is on company time, is it the person’s employer? Or, since it was in the parking lot, who owns the parking lot? Hybrid environments blur the boundaries of responsibility, and, from a personal injury standpoint, determining who has a duty of care in a non-traditional setting involves many moving parts compared to traditional work environments.
Setting The Scene For An Injury
Our friends at Cohen & Cohen are here to break down what a hybrid work environment case might look like, to better convey the difficulty involved in these scenarios. Let’s use the scenario mentioned before: an employee has commuted to a café to work. They arrive at the venue, park, and exit their vehicle. They walk towards the building, and while in the parking lot, they trip over a problematic piece of concrete, breaking some bones. To cover hospital bills, this employee decides to pursue a personal injury case, and now, fault must be determined.
This type of case falls under premises liability, so it must be examined who has control over the space where the injury occurred. Who owns the parking lot first and foremost? Is it private property that belongs to the café or a property management company? Was the employee injured while operating in a work-related activity? That is to say, did the employee go to that spot specifically for work, or did they just go for a quick break? When they tripped, was the hazardous concrete easy to see and avoid?
At the end of the day, these cases hinge on who controls the property. Now, if the person is working in a professional capacity, they may be able to pursue a workers’ compensation claim. However, it is also possible to pursue claims based on third-party liability exposure. That means you can have a workers’ comp claim while also suing whoever should have been responsible for maintaining the parking lot in our example. In these instances, multiple parties may be held liable.
Evidence Is Imperative
Hybrid cases rely heavily on non-traditional evidence, such as location data, timestamps, and even company communications; messages to the company, in particular, can prove the person was on working when the injury occurred. All of these are used to establish the causation and context of the activity. Incident reports often play a large role in these cases, so if this happens to you, report it immediately. Tell the property owner and contact local authorities. Surveillance is another common piece of evidence, as nearby cameras can corroborate your story. Going back to our example of someone injured in a parking lot, cameras can prove that a person was paying attention to their surroundings and not looking at their phone while walking.
Hybrid work has created a complicated subset of personal injury law, but with the right representation, the person responsible for your injuries can be held liable. If you have been involved in an accident while working in a hybrid environment, contact a lawyer near you for help.
