Editing Workers' compensation (section)

== Origin and international comparison ==
Laws regarding workers compensation vary, but the Workers' Accident Insurance system put into place by Prussian Chancellor [[Otto von Bismarck]] in 1884 with the start of Workers' Accident Laws is often cited as a model for the rest of Europe and, later, the United States.<ref>Karmel, ''Dying to Work:  Death and Injury in the American Workplace'' (2017), 180.</ref> After the early Prussian experiments, the development of compensation laws around the world was in important respects the result of transnational networks among policymakers and social scientists. Thus while different countries have their own unique history of workers' compensation, compensation laws developed around the world as a global phenomenon, with each country's deliberation on compensation laws being informed by deliberation in other countries.<ref>Rodgers, ''Atlantic Crossings: Social Politics in a Progressive Age'' (2009), 209-266.</ref>

=== Statutory no-fault compensation ===
Workers' compensation statutes are intended to eliminate the need for litigation and the limitations of common law remedies by having employees give up the potential for pain- and suffering-related awards in exchange for not being required to prove [[tort]] (legal fault) on the part of their employer. The laws provide employees with monetary awards to cover loss of wages directly related to the accident as well as to compensate for permanent physical impairments and medical expenses.

The laws also provide benefits for dependents of those workers who are killed in work-related accidents or illnesses. Some laws also protect employers and fellow workers by limiting the amount an injured employee can recover from an employer and by eliminating the liability of co-workers in most accidents. In the United States, state statutes establish this framework for most types of employment, while federal statutes are limited to federal employees or to workers employed in some significant aspect of interstate commerce.<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/workers_compensation|title=Workers' Compensation|last=Legal Information Institute|publisher=Cornell University Law School|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140205074742/http://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/workers_compensation|archive-date=5 February 2014|url-status=live|access-date=7 February 2014}}</ref>

The exclusive remedy provision states that workers' compensation is the sole remedy available to injured workers, thus preventing employees from also making tort liability claims against their employers.

=== Common law remedies ===
In common law nations, the system was motivated by an "unholy trinity" of tort defenses available to employers, including contributory negligence, assumption of risk, and the fellow servant rule.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Haupt|first=Mary Kati|date=2016|title=Workers' Compensation Law & the Remedial Waiver|url=https://lawpublications.barry.edu/barrylrev/vol21/iss2/4/|journal=Barry Law Review|language=en|volume=21|issue=2}}</ref>

Common law imposes obligations on employers to provide a safe workplace, provide safe tools, give warnings of dangers, provide adequate co-worker assistance (fit, trained, suitable "fellow servants") so that the worker is not overburdened, and promulgate and enforce safe work rules.<ref name="hood">J. Hood, B. Hardy, and L. Simpson. ''Workers' Compensation and Employee Protection Laws'' (St. Paul: West Academic Publishing, 2017).</ref>

Claims under the common law for worker injury are limited by three defenses afforded employers:

* The Fellow Servant Doctrine is that employer can be held harmless to the extent that injury was caused in whole or in part by a peer of the injured worker.
*Contributory negligence allows an employer to be held harmless to the extent that the injured employee failed to use adequate precautions required by ordinary prudence.
*Assumption of risk allows an employer to be held harmless to the extent the injured employee voluntarily accepted the risks associated with the work.<ref name="hood" />