My first lecture each semester in the Workers’ Compensation course at Marquette University Law School in Milwaukee centers on the “great trade-off” between workers and employers that forged the nation’s first constitutional worker’s compensation system in 1911: Workers gave up the right to sue employers for workplace injuries in return for a “no fault” compensation system with assurance of timely but limited benefit payments, adequate and competent medical services, and prompt and sufficient rehabilitation.

The system was designed to provide a means of “guaranteed” compensation for a legitimate injury and disability.

Employers received immunity from tort suits in return for compulsory provision of a scheduled benefit.  Continue reading »