The definition of occupational accidents

Dr. Valéry Karl Wöll

There is no worldwide universally valid definition for occupational accidents. In the German-speaking countries, accidents at work are colloquially referred to as accidents that an employee suffers as a result of a work activity. The legal definition by the german government in Social Code VII (Bundesregierung, 2023b, p. 17) reads as follows:

"Occupational accidents are accidents suffered by insured persons as a result of an activity giving rise to insurance cover under § 2, 3 or 6 (insured activity). Accidents are events of limited duration that act on the body from outside and lead to damage to health or death."

With this, the legislator in the Federal Republic of Germany has on the one hand extended the group of persons beyond the classic employee and on the other hand set several conditions.
First of all, the event must be related to the work activity and must not occur as a result of a private act. A fall in the bathroom while the employee is going to the toilet, even during working hours, is therefore not an occupational accident in the sense of the legislator and therefore does not entitle the employee to benefits from the special accident insurance institutions for employees. Furthermore, the external impact must not extend over a longer period of time but must occur suddenly. In distinction to this, a longer-lasting health-damaging event as a result of an insured activity is referred to as an occupational disease. The complete criteria for the recognition of an occupational disease are also defined in Social Code VII (Bundesregierung, 2023b). To exclude events of internal cause (cardiovascular failure, embolism), reference is made to an event acting on the body from the outside. Such an event can be, for example, an electric shock or an impact by a falling tool. The last criterion aims at the fact that the event must not remain without consequences. The insured person must therefore have been objectively and verifiably harmed in some way. However, a health injury can also be, for example, an emotional trauma (for example, caused by an assault during work). An occupational accident without the fulfilled condition of damage to health or death is referred to in the literature as a near-accident (Hammer et al., 1990) and, according to the occupational health and safety act §16 (Bundesregierung, 2023a), must be reported at least to the supervisor even without the fulfilled condition. A near-accident has not become an accident only due to a coincidental event (Bundesanstalt für Arbeitsschutz und Arbeitsmedizin, 2013).

In order to distinguish between the different types of accidents, near-accidents and actions, further definitions have been developed in laws and the scientific literature. In the following table 1, these are to be presented clearly.