On December 10, 2021, a violent tornado traveled 166 miles across western Kentucky causing severe damage and numerous fatalities, including eight workers at a candle factory in Mayfield, KY. According to news reports, several employees heard tornado warning sirens and asked to leave, only to be warned by supervisors that they would be fired if they lefts their shifts early. Those allegations are denied by company officials. Some employees left anyway. The tornado ultimately leveled the Mayfield Consumer Products factory, killing eight employees and injuring several more.
Investigations have already begun into the company’s safety practices and what workers were ordered to do during the catastrophe. Workers’ compensation claims will be filed, for sure.
The tornado tragedy has stirred up a legal quandary regarding the compensability of natural disasters under each state’s WC statutes. In Kentucky, as is the case in many states, all employers are required to provide compensation for workers injured or killed in the course of their employment, whether or not they are at fault.
According to Danny Cevallos, a legal analyst for MSNBC, Kentucky courts have held since the 1940s that if employment exposes employees to the unique danger of a natural disaster (like lightning) and they’re struck while working, their injuries “arise” from their employment for compensation purposes. However, Cevallos points out a critical exception in Kentucky: “The risk of that job must be greater than that to which others of the public are exposed,” says Cevallos. “If it’s equally possible that the employees could have been hurt by a tornado at home, these workers may not be eligible for compensation.”
While Mayfield Consumer Products officials maintain that supervisors were not told to warn employees to stay, even independent actions on the part of supervisors can impose liability on the candle manufacturer.
What supervisors told employees will be central to determining the outcomes of workers’ comp claims in this case. How Mayfield Consumer Products assessed the tornado threat will also come to light in determining the company’s liability to compensate workers injured and the families of those killed by the tornado-caused disaster.
According to a 2021 study from the World Meteorological Organization and the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the number of fatal natural disasters has increased five-fold in the past 50 years. Parts of the United States that rarely experience earthquakes, tornadoes, hurricanes, and floods are seeing an uptick in these rare natural disasters. For these reasons, cases involving whether natural disasters are compensable under each state’s workers’ comp statutes are likely to be considered with greater frequency in the near future.