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Title: 90-day Notice Requirement

Question:

My work requires me to do a lot of kneeling and bending during the day. I have done my job for several years without any problems. Some weeks ago, I began to notice a pain in my right knee whenever I would get up from a kneeling position. My company has a policy which requires us to report job injuries within 24 hours of their happening. Since I did not plan to miss
any time or go to a doctor, I did not turn in a report. Now my knee is very painful, almost all of the time. Is it too late to file this as a workers' compensation claim with my employer?

Answer:

Under Iowa law, a worker has 90 days after an injury to report it to the employer. If such notice is not given, the worker may well be barred from ever filing a claim. This requirement is in the law because the employer needs to have a timely opportunity to investigate a reported injury, while memories and evidence are fresh. While an employer might have a workplace rule requiring its employees to file an injury report much earlier, the worker will not be barred from filing a suit so long as the injury is reported to the employer within the 90-day period following an injury.

This 90-day notice requirement applies to both "traumatic injuries," injuries that come on with a sudden event, as well as "cumulative injuries," that is, injuries which come on gradually over time. The injury to your knee seems to be a cumulative injury. With a cumulative injury, there is often a question as to when the injury occurred. Iowa case law indicates that the date of injury is the date on which a reasonable employee would know three things: 1) that there was an injury; 2) that it is work- related; and 3) that the injury has had some impact on the employee's work. In many cases, the date of injury is determined to be the first day of work which the employee has to miss due to the injury, but this is not always true. Although it does not appear that your date of injury has occurred at this point, you should file an injury report with your Employer as soon as possible simply to make sure that you are not barred down the road by operation of Iowa's notice requirement. While employees are sometime afraid to file reports of injury with their employer, especially when the injury appears to be minor, they must be aware that they do run some risk if they delay too long.

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