Compensation for moral damage caused as a result of an injury at work or occupational disease

Abstract

State policy in the field of occupational safety is aimed at creating proper, safe, and healthy working conditions, prevention of accidents and occupational injuries. Despite this, unfortunately, in Ukraine, many injuries, as well as deaths resulting from workplace injuries and illnesses, are recorded annually. According to the requirements of the labor legislation, the owner or his authorized body shall be entrusted with ensuring safe and harmless working conditions. Moral damage caused by workplace injuries and illness issues is governed by the rules of civil law and labor law and social security law. In the event of harm to an employee, the employer has a duty to compensate for material and moral damage, whereby the latter is liable to compensation if the violations of the employee’s legal rights have resulted in moral suffering, loss of normal life ties, and require him / her extra life for organizing. Both the employer and the Social Insurance Fund are subject to compensation for material damage caused to the employee as a result of workplace injuries and illnesses, and only the employer is responsible for moral damage. There are no clear algorithms for calculating the number of moral damages, the lower or the upper limit, and the court must consider the requirements of reasonableness and fairness in determining the number of moral damages. Moral damage is compensated irrespective of the material damage to be recovered and is not related to the amount of such compensation. The amount of moral damage is determined by the court depending on the nature of the offense, the depth of physical and mental suffering, impairment of the victim’s abilities, or deprivation of their ability to realize them, the degree of guilt of the person who caused the moral harm, if the fault is grounds for compensation, and also taking into account other essential circumstances. An analysis of the case-law on claims by persons who have received workplace injuries and illnesses or their close relatives to employers for compensation for moral damage indicates that courts have applied unequal substantive law rules and a large range of amounts recovered for moral damage. Keywords: moral harm, industrial injury, workplace illness, employer, employee.