Ohio workers' compensation is a no-fault system. You do not have to prove your employer did anything wrong to get benefits, and you usually cannot sue them for the injury. A VSSR claim is the one place where fault comes back into the picture.
If a specific safety requirement was on the books and your employer ignored it, and that failure caused your injury, you can seek an additional award. Call (614) 221-7381 and describe what happened. These claims turn on details people often do not think to mention.
What a VSSR Claim Is
VSSR stands for Violation of a Specific Safety Requirement. The Industrial Commission has adopted detailed safety rules covering machine guarding, industrial equipment, construction work, protective equipment, and more. When an employer violates one of those rules and the violation causes an injury, the injured worker can apply for additional compensation.
It is not a lawsuit and it is not a personal injury case. It is an application filed within your existing comp claim, heard by the Industrial Commission. The award comes on top of the benefits your claim already pays, and it is paid by the employer rather than out of the state fund.
Who Qualifies
Four things have to be true. You have an allowed workers' compensation claim. A specific safety requirement applied to your employer and your workplace. The employer failed to comply with it. And that failure caused your injury.
The word "specific" is doing real work. A general complaint that the workplace was unsafe is not enough — the Commission requires a particular rule, quoted, that the employer was obligated to follow. Vague safety criticisms lose. A guard missing from a press that the rules required to be guarded wins.
There is also a filing deadline that runs from the date of injury, and it is separate from the deadline on the underlying claim. Waiting is the most common way a strong VSSR claim disappears.
How VSSR Awards Are Decided and Calculated
You file the application, and the Commission investigates: an investigator may visit the site, photograph equipment, and take statements. Both sides submit evidence, and a Staff Hearing Officer decides whether the rule applied, whether it was violated, and whether the violation caused the injury.
If the award is granted, it is set as an additional percentage of the compensation paid in your claim, within a range fixed by the Ohio Constitution and statute. The hearing officer chooses where in that range the award falls based on the seriousness of the violation.
Because the award is a percentage of claim compensation, VSSR value and underlying claim value move together. That is also why a VSSR filing changes the arithmetic on settling an Ohio claim.
Common Fights We See
"The rule does not apply here." Employers argue the equipment or the task falls outside the rule's definitions. Much of a VSSR case is spent on that language.
Unilateral negligence. The employer claims the worker removed the guard, bypassed the safety device, or ignored instructions. Whether that defense holds depends on what supervisors knew and tolerated.
The scene changes. Guards reappear. Equipment is repaired. Photographs taken in the first days after an injury are sometimes the whole case.
Missing witnesses. Coworkers move on. Statements taken early hold up better than memories collected two years later.
How We Help
We start by finding the rule. That means matching the equipment, the task, and the industry to the specific safety requirements that governed your employer, then proving non-compliance with photographs, maintenance records, OSHA documentation, training files, and coworker statements.
We also keep the underlying claim strong, because a VSSR award is worth a percentage of it. If your claim was denied or benefits were cut off, that comes first — see our guide to a denied Ohio workers' comp claim, or the full overview from our Columbus workers' compensation attorneys.
If you think a safety rule was broken, call before the evidence disappears. The review is free.