Timeliness of Claim: Emotional Distress in case of Minor Employee Sexually Assualted by Boss at Work

I had a hard time thinking of a title for this entry, and I am still not entirely happy with what I came up with, but its hard to capsulize, let alone imagine a scenario where a 13 year old (underage for employment in Connecticut) girl begins to work for a landscape contractor who then goes on to have sexual relations with her. The landscaper is ultimately arrested on statutory rape charges and the young girl begins to experience emotional distress and requires psychiatric treatment.
Some 6 years after this unhappy situation arose, it dawned on the childs parents---yes the same parents that let their 13 year old go take a job---that maybe this should be covered under workers compensation. They file a claim, citing the medical treatment exception to the 1 year notice of claim proivision under CGS 31-294C. The parents, through their lawyer, reason that inasmuch as the employer had to reimburse the girl her out of pocket expenses for counseling as a condition of his criminal case, he had in fact paid for medical care thus triggering the exception establishing compensability in a late notice case. The CRB did not buy it.

I expect a appeal. I also think that the odds are better than 50/50 that at some point, one of the Appellate courts in Conecticut will get swept up in the child sex abuse statute of limitations fever and deem the claim compensable.

I cannot emphasize enough the importance of filing a timely claim for benefits. Time and time again, it seems, I have to tell a prospective client that they will be unlikely to prevail in their claim for a on the job ijury for the simple reason they did not follow the requisite steps and file a 30C Notice of Claim. If you get hurt on the job, it is essential that you speak with a experieced Connecticut workers compensation lawyer as soon as possible.