What happens when someone dies at work? What happens when you’re injured at work? It’s a legal question no one wants to think about. If you or someone you love works in a higher-risk job or is around heavy machinery, you need a plan in case something happens. Iowa workers rights attorney, Nate Boulton explains having clarity now makes you far less vulnerable.
Boulton, a partner at Hedberg and Boulton law firm, says most family members are completely caught off guard when they’re injured or lose a loved one. And because they’re in a vulnerable position they’re easily taken advantage of or just give up, not knowing their rights. Boulton says even in cases leadership wants what is best for their employees, those in mourning shouldn’t be on their own making hard calls.
What happens when someone dies at work?
Boulton, an experienced worker’s rights attorney, explains navigating your legal rights when a loved one dies on the job is a major burden. The United States has laws that protect us, but the complexly can overwhelm people, especially when insurance companies quickly deny claims. He recalls recent cases where legal intervention turned an assumed “no” into a rightful benefit.
“The reality is, in most of those cases, you can talk to an attorney and that’s where they start talking to doctors and other experts,” Boulton explains. Emotional distress and confusion often prevent families from asking the right questions, but having a guide who’s been down the road before can draw connections that are not immediately obvious—such as a heart attack linked to extreme workplace conditions.
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Injury Without Blame: Understanding Workers’ Comp
The conversation also centered around non-fatal injuries and the mistaken belief that an employee must prove employer fault to receive compensation. Boulton dispels this notion by outlining the no-fault framework of workers’ compensation, which was designed to remove the legal burden from injured workers.
“You don’t have to be able to prove that somebody else did something wrong. All you have to prove is that you were engaged in your work activities… and the injury happened,” Boulton says. This system takes a lot of pressure off workers. The assumption that zero errors will happen at work isn’t realistic. If workers are injured, even if they were partly to blame, they can still be entitled to help from their employer.
Sadly, most workers think they’re too blame, or they have to point the finger at their employer. Neither are true.
Yes, employers side with employees!
In a surprising twist, Boulton recounts instances where employers actually sided with injured employees against their own insurance carriers—actually more common than you may think.
In one case, a business owner who witnessed an injury firsthand was outraged when their insurance provider denied the claim, siding with his employee. This illustrates that the adversarial narrative isn’t always between employer and employee—it’s often the insurer that needs to be challenged.
Whether operating heavy machinery or managing logistics, employees and their families should be aware of who to call and what steps to take if disaster strikes.
Injury or death at work in Iowa. Plan ahead.
Understanding what happens when someone dies at work ahead of time is difficult, but vital. Boulton urges listeners, especially those who work around heavy machinery or who are in high-risk jobs not to wait until injury or tragedy occur to become informed. Grief gives you tunnel vision, making you more likely to make poor decisions.
He suggests informing yourself now to learn about workplace injuries, death benefits, and how to file a claim. He stresses the importance of early legal consultation and documentation, especially in situations involving cumulative trauma or unclear causation.
This episode provides an indispensable roadmap for navigating the emotional and legal minefields that follow workplace injury or death. Boulton don’t shy away from the gravity of the topic but instead bring the clarity, compassion, and actionable advice that families in crisis need most.
Death at work or injury? Nate Boulton has resources
Boulton is easy to reach. If you need help navigating a death or injury at work, reach out to Nate and get guidance and peace.
Nate’s Website: https://www.hedberglaw.com/
Nate’s Phone Number: 515-446-9861
Thank you to Hedburg & Boulton PC for collaborating on this exclusive episode for IowaPodcast.com! All our community partners compensate our hosts directly for their time in creating unique, high-value Iowa podcast episodes.
Interview Transcript
This transcript was created with help from Ai. Please report errors to us and always refer to the video as your primary source.
Justin Brady: From Iowapodcast.com, I’m Justin Brady. And have you ever thought about what exactly happens- this is a dark topic, but it’s a serious topic and sometimes we gotta get into that. Have you ever thought, what happens when someone dies at work, as a result of something at work happening that probably shouldn’t have happened. This is a question that comes up a lot, but no one really addresses it out in the open. So we’re going to do that today with Nate Boulton, a workers’ rights attorney and partner at Hedberg and Boulton Law Firm. Nate, this is not the easiest topic to tackle, so thank you for coming in here and tackling this with
Nate Boulton: Yeah, it’s a reason why nobody likes to talk about it, right? It’s a difficult topic, and especially when you talk about a death in the workplace, it’s going to be an unexpected occurrence. And so it’s really hard to talk about in the moment somebody’s lost a loved one and they don’t know what to do, The last thing they’re thinking about is what are the legal consequences that flow from this? And so usually what happens is people are out there just completely uninformed. As to what happens next and how to take care of things. And so you, it’s something that does need to be talked about. So I’m glad we’re talking about it.
Justin Brady: Yeah. And you do Google searches, you look for this stuff, it’s actually hard to find anything of value. it’s easy to find a bunch of shady stuff. It’s very difficult to find any clarity. And so when people go through this. At work, it’s usually the loved ones, I’m assuming, that have to pick up these pieces.
Nate Boulton: Right.
Justin Brady: And they’re in a panic mode. So if, anyone’s in that mode right now, what are the sequence of events or what’s actually going to happen right now?
Nate Boulton: so one of the first things that happens is you’ve got someone who almost certainly doesn’t work at the same place. very rare that you have some loved one in the same workplace and familiar with who to contact and what happens next in those settings. Fortunately, there are some, good things that are set out that the government requires people to do. right? There has to be an OSHA complaint of a death at the workplace, right? so, that stuff processes quickly. because of that, you’ll have the triggering of any work comp death benefits should be fairly automatically flowing from that as long as there’s a way to contact that next person, a surviving spouse or surviving dependent children. For the continued work comp benefits. Now where things get a little tricky is determining whether or not the death is caused by work or just happen to be at work. Oh. And so things like heart attacks and strokes, not necessarily obvious connections to work, where you know, if somebody has a major awful accident Right, A, a truck accident or, a pallet falls on someone. that’s obviously related to work that thing happened at work in, the workplace. But yeah, if it’s a heart attack or if it’s something like that, there’re gonna be a lot more question marks of, is this actually causally related to the work activities or did it just happen to occur in the workplace? And that’s where, yeah, you need to start talking with workers’, compensation attorneys to figure out if the surviving spouse, if. surviving dependents are entitled To a work comp benefit. or not.
Justin Brady: Yeah.’cause it, it sounds very complicated because Yeah, it makes sense.’cause in, in some cases it’s gonna be cut and dry, black and white. Really easy to understand. And when people are going through this, obviously, I, know from personal experience, just going through bad things in life, your judgment is gone. You don’t have it, it’s gone. You need someone to guide you through these things and it’s very, hard. Even critical thinking takes a backseat. You’re clouded with emotions. So when something like this does happen, the, I’m hearing the complication is, in finding out how it happened at work. was it really, this is the gray area that people are going to get on both sides of.
Nate Boulton: Correct. And obviously, most insurance companies are gonna stand in and say it’s not our responsibility. that that they’re going to deny benefits in, in cases where they feel like they can, and that’s where, PE people just don’t know where to turn. Usually. And I’ve had that happen very recently in a couple of instances where people have called me saying, is there anything we can do on this? And fortunately they did reach out
Justin Brady: to us.
Nate Boulton: compensation attorney And we figured that out. But so many people, because it’s a hard topic, never have this conversation. And so they’re, left with assuming nothing can. be done.
Justin Brady: Oh, they just, oh, because the insurance companies, I’m not gonna bash on anyone. But the insurance companies aren’t in an emotional state. They’re just following this process and policy and they just check these boxes off. And of course it’s, gonna hurt their bottom line if something is true that implicates their client. So they’re just going through this process and other people just kinda shut down’cause they feel like that’s the final call.
Nate Boulton: That’s right. They get a letter saying benefits are denied. Because of this reason. and a lot of people just assume, okay, I don’t know what I could do to appeal that. The insurance company made its decision. and the reality is, in most of those cases, you can talk to an attorney and that’s where they start talking to, doctors and other experts to say, wait a minute, medically, is this connected to work or not? Is, and it’s called medical causation. Is there a relationship medically between what ultimately was the cause of death and the work activities being performed that day or over that person’s career. And so that’s where, tying those, things together as you, you’re, you just said, an insurance company isn’t gonna go do that extra work. They’re gonna see a reason to deny the claim and just accept the, denial, the claim and move on. because they’re not connected to these individuals where the surviving spouse or the surviving dependent children obviously want an answer to that And we’ll do a lot more to figure out, okay. If we ask some doctors, is there a connection between, for example, that heart attack. And the physical work that was being performed right up to the point of death, is there relationship there and having a cardiac surgeon or somebody come in and answer that question? and say, Oh goodness. Okay. Yeah. I think there is a relationship between physical exertion, and the cause of death in this occurrence.
Justin Brady: This, it seems really cut and dry and obvious to me on the surface level.
Nate Boulton: right?
Justin Brady: oh, if someone dies at work, duh, there’s a black, but, when you mention, oh, this, extra cardiac stress because of something work was doing, if the heat was like extremely high and they were lifting over the load that they were supposed to, given that like all these factors. Work caused this thing and like I, those are things I probably, those are things I didn’t even think of before talking with you, so clearly those are probably things people aren’t going to think of when they’re in an emotional situation. If someone is in a, I don’t even know if this is the right term, if they’re in a job where there’s heavy machinery, heavy equipment being used, is this something they should Just for their loved ones and their family. This is not a leading question at all, but it just maybe they should be aware of who is there to help them in case something happens like that way they have a list they leave with their family. That’s like in the case of something happening at work called this person and they’re gonna help me, they’re gonna help you go to bat or something. Is this a smart thing to check off your list?
Nate Boulton: Absolutely, because again, you’re usually dealing with all of the, extra stress. of having just suddenly lost a loved one. trying to take, being a an investigator of sorts, off of your, list is important, Talk to somebody who’s gonna know what things to look for and, whether it’s, you use the example of a heart attack, but sometimes there’s an incident of injury and then days, weeks, or months later, someone dies. As a consequence of. that incident that happened, maybe it caused internal organ injuries or something that just wasn’t detected again. That’s a
Justin Brady: a good point.
Nate Boulton: You don’t need to be the investigator as the loved one who’s trying to take care of funeral arrangements and make family arrangements. You should be talking to someone else to do that. To figure out, okay, what really can and cannot be done in, that instance. So That’s important to do and, again. It’s really easy to just accept something is closed and moved on at that really stressful time in your life. So you get that letter saying, this isn’t work related. We’re not paying benefits. Don’t just shell that. look, into it.
Justin Brady: Goodness. this is a nation, this country’s incredible because it has laws that protect people, but a lot of people don’t understand, you have a lot more rights than you think you do. The founding fathers and the people who’ve been elected to our government have done a pretty good job protecting people. But you can’t really protect yourself if you don’t really know what the laws are, so what happens then, if it’s, not. As critical as like death in the family. But you’re injured at work. Yeah. And it’s not, something you did, it’s something either someone else at work did, or it’s something your employer did. Is this a different scenario? How do you move forward on that? Yeah,
Nate Boulton: one of the things that comes up a lot in legal cases is who’s at fault? Who caused the problem? And in a death case or in a non death injury case, it’s not the burden of the employee to prove that the. Company they worked for did something wrong. Oh, we, presume that an injury that’s work related is entitled to compensation, right? It’s, W there was a trade off years ago to take all these things out of a regular personal injury negligence type case where we’re pointing fingers of who’s at fault. If you were engaged in work activities and the injury result or the death result is, from those work activities, you’re entitled to work comp benefits Even if you made a mistake as you were doing your own job. That’s the thing that I think most people don’t really understand is interesting Just, when you talk about working with heavy equipment, right? Mistakes can have huge consequences for yourself or others. Sure. And if you make a mistake and, a piece of equipment causes a serious injury or a death, it. it’s not just your fault and you have to deal with it. the company that employs you is ultimately responsible for that and as part of the risk that they have to pay work comp. benefits for is you’re working with heavy equipment or you’re working with high voltage or whatever issues are out there, you’re presuming somebody’s eventually going to make a mistake one. day. And if that happens,
Justin Brady: three people are human,
Nate Boulton: we don’t force you to go out and, pay for your own medical care. because a company was profiting from, doing the, work or, providing the service that ended up causing that injury. So, we take fault outta the equation. Sure. And That’s a huge thing that I think most people miss completely is, I have to prove that the employer did something wrong, or the employer’s gonna look at me and say I did something wrong. We just don’t do that in, work related injury cases.
Justin Brady: because the situation that you put your employees in, not bad, it’s not nefarious, but the situation is maybe it’s a riskier thing or problems can happen and it’s extremely. Irresponsible from a company standpoint, a personal standpoint, or a community standpoint, to assume that every job is a hundred percent accurate all the time. I make mistakes constantly. and so that is an occupational hazard in every job. In my own job I make mistakes, but in most cases I’m not paying for that with a major injury or my life. So this is interesting because I think most people assume that in order, they’re put in a vulnerable position, they, whether it was their fault or someone else’s, they’re now injured and in a big, problem and they assume they have to point the finger at someone. To get help. And so you’re telling me that’s, not a thing. You don’t have to point the finger at someone.
Nate Boulton: You don’t have to be able to prove that somebody else did something wrong. All you have to prove is that you were engaged in your work activities where it’s related to the work you were doing, and that as a consequence of that work, the injury happened regardless of who’s at fault. Now, if there is somebody clearly at fault If you have, let’s say you’re a truck driver and somebody crosses the center line and plows into you And causes an accident, that individual is also responsible for causing a personal injury accident even though you were at work as a truck driver. And that’s where things can get a little complicated again,’cause you’ll have your work comp benefits from the trucking company that you work for, then you can go after in a personal injury lawsuit, the person who crossed the center line and plowed into your, vehicle. But they, part of that claim is gonna be repaying those work comp benefits. Sure. Because that person’s responsible for the. injuries That they caused, including the work comp benefits your employer paid to you. So things can get complicated pretty quickly when we do start talking about fault, especially when there’s a third party. Or the other thing that’s complicated is gross negligence of a coworker. So generally, nobody’s expected to be perfect in how they perform the job all the time. However, if someone is so careless, it’s almost reckless, intentional conduct in the workplace. You’re a butcher and you’re juggling knives somebody gets in the way, you know you’re going, you’re not gonna have that protection of I was at work. It is just a work comp claim, you engage in an activity that was probably going to injure others. And when it happens, you’re, responsible
Justin Brady: I hope it was worth the spectacle for the, you butchers out there juggling knives. It’s interesting because you’re not, you’re saying that we are not removing personal responsibility outta the equation. This is still very much an important thing. It’s more of a matter of finding that balance that protects everyone’s rights at the same time, but also make sure to, Uphold consequences when things happen. it’s, a really, difficult, almost Rubik’s cube of law you’re dealing with. It’s
Nate Boulton: It is. And another thing people are somewhat cautious about, talking about work comp benefits. If you’re injured at work, I don’t wanna sue my employer. I have a good relationship with that employer. And I think a thing that’s a misconception out there is that employers take these things personally. you have your own auto insurance if you’re pulling outta your driveway and you scraped the mirror on the. Garage door or something and you, cause, $500 worth of damage or something and you wanna make an insurance company pay for the damage. You’re not suing yourself, you’re turning in an insurance claim for a benefit you paid
Justin Brady: for.
Nate Boulton: To fix that problem. It’s the same thing at the workplace, right? The employer has work comp coverage to cover those injuries that happen. That’s, why that exists there. You’re not helping them by pretending an injury doesn’t happen or that. the Consequences of the injury aren’t real and letting it get worse and a bigger problem, you know that’s why those benefits exist. That’s why they’re there. That’s why you have insurance on your vehicle to cover. those damages. You don’t feel angry with yourself for turning in your insurance claim. Yeah. It’s not fun. Nobody wants to do it, but that’s why the insurance exists. and You don’t want to go out and pay out of pocket for something. You had insurance for. in the in, in the first
Justin Brady: In the first place. Yeah. Have you ever seen, then, in that case, have you ever seen, like company owners or founders or executives actually go to bat against their own insurance companies then for their workers? Have you seen this happen?
Nate Boulton: I, have. I had a, case of a small employer, several years ago who, saw the injury happen and reported the injury and the insurance company denied the claim. They saw some pre-existing. problems with that area of the body that they said, oh, this is related to those pre-existing issues. And the only company was pretty upset about it, saying, wait a minute, I pay work comp insurance. I saw the injury happen. I want that work comp insurance to take care of this employee that I care about. I want this person to get the benefit. And so it was a strange situation, but the insurance company kept denying the claim. We were about ready to go to hearing and ready to call the company owner as one of our witnesses. to Talk about how the injury happened and why the claim should be accepted. So eventually we were able to get that resolved. But yeah, that’s again, a great example of why it shouldn’t be considered you’re doing something against your employer to turn in, a work injury. It’s the same thing as if, you damaged a car, you’d bring it back to work. If it was a company car and show’em where the damage is and they’d turn it into their car insurance claim. We don’t really tend to have that kind of mental difficulty with, okay. Should I. turn this in Or not? If it’s a car that’s damaged, why would we have that difficulty? If it’s you, the worker who was damaged, you shouldn’t, be willing to protect the car more than yourself.
Justin Brady: Yeah, absolutely. Nate Boulton, the worker’s rights attorney and partner at Hedberg and Boulton. If someone’s watching this and they’re going through this situation, either they’ve lost a loved one or they’re injured at work, how can they reach out to you to get your help?
Nate Boulton: Sure. We have, a website that has some information on it. it’s. the Easiest way to get to it is workerslawyers.com. hedberglaw.com is also a site that you can go to, but workerslawyers.com gets you to our website, and provides you more information about some of these questions. about, how do I report an injury? What kind of injuries are accepted? and, cumulative injuries are another big question of injuries that develop over time or an accumulation of traumas. how, were those turned? in and, How are they covered? All those questions, you can get those answers through that website.
Justin Brady: I love the way you break this down, and I love the way you tell this story because like we talked about before this show, it’s a really, important issue. So thank you for creating this show with me. I know that a lot of people are gonna find some help through it.
Nate Boulton: I appreciate the chance to talk about these things, especially when you talk about those death claims. It’s so hard to talk about and touch that topic. We need people to be informed so they can make good decisions about what’s next.
Justin Brady: Absolutely.