Please Text your Friends and Family
Thank you for signing this petition! I ask one last favor. Please share this with your family and friends via text message or messenger to make it personal, because it is.
Our government needs to protect the workers equally and fairly. They take taxes out of the workers checks do not offer adequate protection to the workers regardless of their marital status or parentage. (see below)
This change will not help in Wyatt’s situation BUT in HIS memory can help change inadequate laws that do not protect employees fairly
Thank you for your help
Wendy
workers comp act
Texas Workers’ Compensation Act, established in 1913, states that statutory benefits are the exclusive remedy for a covered employee or his legal beneficiary against his employer for work-related injury or death. By 1916, the Texas Supreme Court decision added action for intentional injury to an employee.
Justice urges legislative changes in Workers’ Compensation Act
Section 408.001(b) of the Workers’ Compensation Act allows certain family members to recover exemplary damages. However, Escobedo’s parents and sister filed the lawsuit, disqualifying them from recovering those damages.
408.001(b)’s deterrent effect is weakened, and public safety is imperiled. Employers who intentionally, willfully, and repeatedly ignore, thwart, and evade workplace laws should not escape responsibility when the foreseeable consequences of doing so materialize.”
If either plaintiff was the spouse or child of Escobedo, the Workers’ Compensation Act allows them to move forward with a separate wrongful death lawsuit. However, the language of the Workers’ Compensation Act prevents them from proceeding with that lawsuit because of their familial relationship.
“In a perfect world, employers would do the right thing simply because it is the right thing to do,” Guzman concluded in the opinion. “But we don’t live in a perfect world. We live in a world that requires laws, regulations, and disincentives to help ensure employers don’t do the wrong thing. Without meaningful consequences for engaging in prohibited conduct, laws are not effective.”