The dispute over the safety rule
The key issue in Harris v. Express Employment Professionals was whether the employer could support its willful misconduct defense. The Tennessee Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board said it hadn’t shown a likelihood of success because the evidence didn’t establish that the alleged safety rule existed, was enforced or was known to the worker. That finding puts the focus on proof: an employer’s account of a rule isn’t enough, by itself, to show that a worker knowingly violated it.
The temporary worker, assigned by Express Employment Professionals to a manufacturing facility, was seriously injured in October 2025. A crane pinned him against a tank while he was on a catwalk inspecting it; he suffered broken ribs, a lacerated liver and a collapsed lung. Express argued that being on the catwalk while the crane operated in automated mode violated a safety rule.
The account describes a grave workplace accident, but the board’s decision turned on a narrower question than how dangerous the situation was. The issue was whether the record supported the employer’s asserted defense at the stage considered by the board. To make that case, Express needed evidence connecting the alleged rule to the worker: proof that the rule was established, that it was applied in practice and that he knew about it. The board found that showing wanting.
That distinction matters. A safety procedure may make sense as a matter of workplace practice, but a misconduct defense depends on what the evidence can establish about the particular worker and the particular rule. The decision, as described, doesn’t find that the worker’s conduct was safe or that no rule could have applied. It finds that Express hadn’t shown enough to support its defense at this point.
Treatment dispute and fees
Express initially authorized care at a walk-in clinic. The provider referred the worker to pulmonology, psychiatry, neurology and orthopedics. The company supplied an orthopedic panel but rejected the other referrals, then denied the claim, citing alleged cannabis use and willful misconduct.
Those steps created a separate dispute about access to treatment. The initial provider had referred the worker to several specialists, but Express accepted only the orthopedic referral. The board’s ruling on fees concerned the company’s refusal of the other three referrals, which it found lacked a supportable factual or legal basis. That conclusion doesn’t establish that every referral in a workers’ compensation case must be accepted. It addresses the reasons Express gave in this case.
The distinction between the treatment dispute and the misconduct defense is useful. The defense concerned whether the worker knowingly breached an established, enforced safety rule. The fee issue concerned whether the employer had a reasonable basis for refusing specialist care. They arose from the same claim, but they required the board to assess different decisions and different evidence.
On Thursday, the board affirmed and remanded the case, upholding medical benefits and attorney fees. It found Express lacked a supportable factual or legal basis for initially refusing three specialist referrals and affirmed fees tied to that unreasonable denial of treatment. The remand means the case returns for further proceedings; the available account doesn’t specify what steps will follow or how the remaining issues will be resolved.
Fees matter here because they make the treatment decision consequential beyond the immediate question of which care was authorized. When a refusal lacks a sound basis, the employer may face financial consequences tied to that choice. The ruling gives a practical signal about the need to explain treatment decisions with evidence and a defensible rationale. A bare disagreement with a provider’s referrals didn’t carry the day in this record.
What the ruling establishes
The decision leaves the employer’s defense short of the evidence needed to show that the worker knowingly breached an established, enforced rule. This is more significant than it looks: the board’s point is not simply that a rule should be written down, but that the employer must support the elements of its defense with evidence. The rule’s existence, enforcement and the worker’s knowledge each matter to the argument described here.
Similar workplace disputes often turn on the gap between a policy as an employer describes it after an accident and a rule that can be demonstrated through evidence. Records of instruction, consistent enforcement or communication may help clarify what a worker was expected to do, though the account doesn’t say what evidence was offered on those subjects in this case. The board’s conclusion is therefore specific to the record before it; it shouldn’t be read as a finding about every employer’s safety program.
And yet, the alleged conduct involved a crane in automated mode and a worker on a catwalk. That context makes clear why employers may view safety rules as central to preventing serious harm. But severity alone doesn’t establish that a worker knowingly broke a rule. The decision keeps those questions separate, which is a restrained approach to a case involving serious injuries.
Implications for employers and workers
If you’re working in this space, the case highlights two records that need attention: the record supporting a safety defense and the record supporting decisions about medical care. For an employer, clear communication and evidence of enforcement can matter when a defense depends on a worker’s knowledge of a rule. For a worker, the ruling shows that an employer’s assertion of misconduct doesn’t, on its own, settle whether treatment should be provided.
(And this is the part most people overlook.) The treatment issue didn’t disappear inside the larger argument about how the accident happened. The board separately assessed the refusal of three specialist referrals and upheld fees connected to that decision. That separation gives the ruling a broader practical lesson for claims handling: a weak defense on one issue doesn’t excuse an unsupported decision on another.
The next stage remains open. The board affirmed and remanded, but the available account doesn’t describe the proceedings on remand or establish the final outcome of every issue in the claim. For now, the ruling sets a clear limit on what Express had shown: the evidence didn’t support its willful misconduct defense at the required level, and the initial rejection of three specialist referrals lacked a supportable basis. A serious accident. A record the board found insufficient.