As stated in an earlier blog, a worker has the burden of showing four things to establish a right to compensation for work injury—(a) employment; (b) injury; (c) that the injury arose out of the employment; and (d) that the injury occurred in the course of employment.  This blog focuses on the “injury” element. This […]

In a typical year in Iowa, there are 40 to 60 work fatalities—work injuries in which the worker loses his or her life.  The majority of these major incidents are motor vehicle crashes on highways, and a high percentage of the victims are truckers.  There are millions of miles driven by truckers in Iowa every year, and […]

Full-time police or firefighters are not compensated for work injury under Chapter 85 of the Iowa Code.  Because of the special demands of these types of public employment, Iowa has established a combined retirement and disability system administered by a special board that is much different than the workers’ compensation court.  Let’s start with a […]

In this heavily agricultural state of ours, people injured while working in agriculture were exempt from the workers’ compensation law until only a few years ago, when the legislature changed the law.  Here is the state of the law following that removal of the very broad agricultural exemption.  First, there is still a large group […]

The workers’ compensation law of Iowa is located in Chapter 85 of the Code (the book of permanent statutes passed by Iowa’s legislature).  The Iowa Code is posted on the website of the Iowa legislature and it has a search engine.  Citizens should never shy away from looking things up in the Code—it is not rocket science […]