Happy Friday, dear readers!

Your humble blogger hopes you head off into a wonderful weekend fully of puppy dogs and rainbows and all that fun stuff.  But if you are one of those cursed wretches that sees the Labor Code on the back of your eyelids and potential workers’ compensation claims everywhere you go – night and day, work or leisure, foreign or domestic, then I have a post to keep you occupied for the next couple of days.

Often times enough, I’ve found myself muttering that I have the most ridiculous claim of injury ever heard of.  I’ve compared some claims to paper cuts, and others to wounded pride.  Certainly, out there, one of my beloved readers is thinking “I’ve got one to top that…” Well, you don’t.  Your humble blogger has conducted extensive research and has found THE most ridiculous case ever.  This claim lends credibility to the worst of the worst:

The matter is, of course, that of John T. Manchester v. Miller Manufacturing Company (1940) 6 CCC 26.  Mr. Manchester, a mechanic’s helper, was operating a hay grinder when a rod on the grinder broke, striking his glasses and breaking one of the lenses.  That’s it.

The applicant alleged that he sustained injury to his eyeglasses.

The referee held that damage to eyeglasses… you know… inanimate objects that are not part of the human body, were not compensable.  The referee further held that Mr. Manchester is going to have to pay for his own replacement glasses, and not come after the employer for them.

Just imagine that, dear readers – a world where workers file claims for cumulative trauma sustained to their boots, specific injuries sustained to their pants as stains, and amputation claims when a button gets lost during the work day.  We might even have claims filed by domesticated animals.

Fortunately, we’re limited to ridiculous claims to actual human body parts which only manifest subjective symptoms and can be easily cured with large sums of money applied directly to the wallet.

Have a good weekend, folks!