There are two main reasons why employers retaliated against employees for filing a workers comp claim or asking for any type of disability leave or benefit. This retaliation may include trying to unfairly discipline, write-up, suspend, demote or even terminate that worker based on false, exaggerated or wholly fabricated reasons.
The first reason for retaliating is the fact that every workers comp claim raises the insurance premiums that the employer has to pay, just like a car accident or a speeding ticket would raise a car insurance premiums of any person who commits those violations. The more serious a workers compensation claim is and the larger the settlement is, the higher the employer’s workers comp insurance premiums will be. Of course, this insurance burden is greater on smaller employer than on larger companies, for which workers comp is a relatively minor expense on the budge. A supervisor who believes that his employee become a significant financial burden to the company will be more inclined to discourage that employee from pursuing a claim, especially if that supervisor experiences increased pressure from his higher ups because of the injured employees reduced productive or absences.
The second reason for retaliation for filing a workers comp claim is that managers often think that an employee who reports an injury is faking it in order to try to take advantage of the system, get paid, and be off work on medical leave. This kind of skepticism toward industrial injuries and workers comp claims is particularly common where an employee claims emotional injury, such as PTSD, depression, anxiety, etc., that cannot be objective measured (as opposed to broken bones, repetitive syndrome injuries, etc.., back injuries, etc.).
Often one of the above or a combination of both factors leads manager to engage in retaliation and give rise to rightful wrongful termination claims.