Postdoctoral Fellow Disputes Comp as Remedy for Lab Explosion

Wednesday, September 5, 2018 | 0

A University of Hawaii researcher who was told workers’ compensation is her only remedy for injuries sustained in a lab explosion is asking the state’s high court to find that she wasn’t an employee, according to a report by Honolulu Civil Beat.

Thea Ekins-Coward filed a lawsuit against the state’s university system in 2017 claiming that its negligence caused the 2016 cylinder explosion that amputated her right arm above the elbow and caused nerve damage to her ear. The complaint alleges that the university failed to provide adequate safety training for canisters of compressed gas.

The university told Ekins-Coward that she’s an employee and can pursue only workers’ compensation benefits. While postdoctoral fellows are not considered university employees when they are doing research, if they are injured they are deemed employees only for the purpose of workers’ compensation benefits, according to Civil Beat.

A trial judge in March agreed that the Department of Labor and Industrial Relations had exclusive jurisdiction over the claim.

Attorneys for Ekins-Coward filed a petition with the state Supreme Court, asking it to decide whether their client should be deemed an employee.