This is the story of a longshoreman who, on January 8, 2006, drank two beers before going to work at 8:00 a.m. Between 8:00 a.m. and 12:00 p.m., he knocked back another three cold ones. At lunch, he washed down his liquid breakfast and snack with another four to five more beers. Between the end of lunch and the end of the day (approximately 4:00 p.m.), the longshoreman ignored the old “beer then liquor, never sicker” refrain and downed a pint of whiskey.
Now, if you’re keeping score at home, his blood alcohol level right about 4:30 was .25. For those of you teetotalers who may be wondering, how bad is .25? Three sheets to the wind, at a minimum; possibly more drunk than John Daly was that time at Hooters.
But I digress, all that booze from dawn to dusk warrants a bathroom break and the longshoreman decided to relieve himself at quittin’ time near the bull rail of the dock. Unfortunately, while urinating, the longshoreman fell over the bull rail onto a concrete and steel ledge (approximately six feet below the rail). At the hospital, the docs diagnosed the longshoreman with acute alcohol intoxication — ya think? –, cannabis ingestion, and a severe scalp laceration to his right temple.
So, naturally, after the longshoreman sobered up, he made a workers’ compensation claim.
Now, I don’t know much about workers’ compensation. Frankly, I hardly know anything. But, my gut tells me that the drunk, pot-smoking, urinator rarely collects.
True dat, said the Ninth Circuit (here).
You see, apparently, when your drunkenness is the cause of your injury, you can’t collect workers’ compensation.
Fat, drunk, and stupid is now way to go through life.
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(h/t Betty Wang)
Image credit: Longshoreman