Defenses

• Jurisdiction: Maryland

VI. DEFENSES

A. In General

No compensation is payable for injury or death caused by the willful intention of the injured employee to injure himself or herself or another, by willful misconduct, or solely by intoxication or drug use.¹⁸¹

1. Willful misconduct

Since contributory negligence is not a defense to a workers' compensation claim, a worker's misconduct must be more than thoughtless, heedless or inadvertent. To defeat the claim, the employer must show that the worker intentionally placed himself or herself in a position where he or she was likely to be injured.¹⁸²

2. Intoxication or drug use

An injury results solely from intoxication or drug use, and is thereby not compensable, if the employment does no more than supply the setting, the stage, or the situation in which the worker is injured. Concurrence of the effects of drug use or intoxication and the setting, alone, is not enough to make the injury compensable; the hazards of the employment must be a moving cause and not merely an inactive...