The Tennessee Supreme Court’s Special Workers’ Compensation Appeals Panel ruled that a residential treatment facility employee was entitled to benefits for an injury he sustained while trying to restrain a patient. His employer claims he violated their policy on restraining patients, but he had not willfully violated this policy.

Jeffrey Johns worked for Hermitage Hall (Tennessee Clinical Schools), it is a therapeutic residential treatment facility for teenagers. They have a physical restraint policy which only allows physical restraint when there is an imminent risk of a resident physically harming themselves or others. Mr. Johns had worked for the facility for less than two months and was working beyond the end of his overnight shift because he was asked to wake up a group of residents to get them ready for breakfast and morning medications. He asked several boys to get up and when one would not get up after several minutes, he tugged the blankets off the boy. The boy began to his Mr. Johns until he let go of the blanket. Mr. Johns grabbed the boy and called for backup but fell to the floor, permanently injuring his shoulder.

He acknowledged that he used a one-person hold to restrain the boy, which he knew was only to be used if there was a threat of imminent harm. He explained that he was not sure what the boy was going to do next and he had already been striking Mr. Johns. Johns could not go back to work and was fired for violating the restraint policy.

He filed for comp, saying his injury arose out of during the course and scope of his employment but his claim was denied because his employer said he could not recover benefits from an injury resulting from an employee’s willful misconduct of their policy.

A trial court held that his injuries were compensable because the situation supported the conclusion that he did not willfully violate the policy, and the facility failed to show they engaged in a serious enforcement of the policy. The Supreme Court of Tennessee’s Special Workers Compensation Appeals panel upheld that ruling. The court found the restraint policy was not a “hard and fast rule” and permitted restraining actions if a resident posed a threat.

Read more here and read the case here.