Assaulted at Work in Pennsylvania: Workers Comp, and the Claim Beyond It

The personal animus exception

Pennsylvania generally covers injuries from assaults that arise in the course of employment. The main carve out is where the attacker was motivated by personal reasons directed at you as an individual rather than anything to do with the job.

The distinction sounds clean and is frequently anything but. A domestic dispute that follows someone to work may fall outside. A customer who attacks a cashier over a refund is squarely inside. A coworker dispute that began at work and escalated is genuinely arguable, and insurers reach for this exception more often than the facts support.

Who is exposed to this

Healthcare aides and nurses, particularly in behavioral units and nursing homes. Retail and convenience staff, especially on night shifts. Transit and delivery drivers. Security staff. Social workers and anyone doing home visits. Teachers.

Injuries from restraining a patient or resident are workplace violence claims even where nobody intended harm, and they are among the most commonly under-reported.

The claim that is usually larger

Workers compensation pays your medical treatment and about two thirds of your wages. It pays nothing for what an assault actually did to you.

Where somebody other than your employer allowed it, a third party claim covers pain and suffering. That may be:

• A property owner, on inadequate security, where prior incidents made violence foreseeable and lighting, locks, cameras or staffing were not addressed.
• A security contractor that failed to do what it was engaged to do.
• A staffing agency or the site operator, where you were placed somewhere known to be dangerous.
• The assailant personally, though this is often not worth pursuing financially.

Foreseeability is usually proved with the police call history for the address. It is public, it is obtainable, and it frequently shows a pattern the employer knew about.

Psychological injury, and the higher bar

Pennsylvania treats mental injury claims differently depending on the trigger. Where a physical injury caused the psychological condition, it is generally treated like any other consequence of the injury. Where the claim is psychological arising from a purely mental stimulus with no physical injury, the standard is considerably harder: the claimant must generally show **abnormal working conditions**, which is a demanding test.

After a violent assault there is usually a physical injury, which matters legally as well as medically. Report every physical symptom, however minor it seems next to what happened.

What to do

1. Report it to your employer in writing, and file a police report. Both.
2. Get medical attention for physical injuries, and say the cause.
3. Get psychological treatment early. A gap is used against these claims routinely.
4. Ask for the incident report and any prior incident records for that location.
5. Ask us to request the video before it is overwritten.