The Intentional Tort Doctrine in Ohio allows injured workers to file personal injury suits against their employers under a theory of “intentional tort,” essentially defined as employer knowledge of a dangerous workplace process, procedure, machinery, instrumentality or condition leading to a “substantial certainty” of injury or illness.

In Ohio, personal injury suits arising out of workplace accidents and exposures are routinely heard by a jury to determine, along with employer knowledge, whether a given injury or illness was “substantially certain” to occur.

According to Ohio Revised Code Section 2745.01(B) “Substantial Certainty” means that an employer acts with deliberate intent to cause an employee to suffer an injury, a disease, a condition, or death.

The intent of the “substantial certainty” definition is and attempt to limit intentional tort cases to those cases where there is an actual, deliberate intent to injure the employee.

The law provides that there is a “rebuttable presumption” of the required “intent to injure” if there is a “deliberate removal by an employer of an equipment safety guard or deliberate misrepresentation of a toxic or hazardous substance.”

Additionally, an Intentional Tort permits the injured worker to file an independent tort action against the Employer to seek compensation and punitive damage compensation in seperate and apart from the BWC claim. These claims are filed in the Court of Common Pleas in the jurisdiction in which the intentional tort took place.

Call Gruhin & Gruhin to see if your injury situation rises to the standard of an intentional tort claim.