The report the employer owes the Fund

They are Articles 11 and 12 of Act 45-1935: the employer’s duty to keep a register of injuries and to report every accident in writing to the Fund within five days, what that report must say, what happens to an employer who does not do it or does it badly, and the rule that certified hospital records count as evidence.

The duty falls on every employer covered by the Act. The register covers the serious or slight injuries their workers receive in the course of their occupation, and the illnesses the Act protects: the Act does not distinguish by severity when setting the duty to register. The five-day report is filed with the Administrator of the State Insurance Fund Corporation on the blank forms the Administrator supplies.

• Keeping a register of the serious or slight injuries workers receive in the course of their occupation, or of the illnesses the Act protects.Verified against the official source
• Filing a written report with the Administrator of the State Insurance Fund Corporation within five (5) days after an accident occurs, on the blank forms the Administrator supplies.Verified against the official source

• The written accident report, which under Article 11 must contain the name and nature of the worker’s occupation, the wage they earned, the location of the establishment, the injured worker’s name, age, sex and occupation, the date and hour of the accident, the nature and cause of the injury, and any other information required.

1. 1

   Step 1: The register: serious and slight

   Article 11 opens with a continuing duty, not one triggered by a big accident. “Every employer shall keep a register of the serious or slight injuries received by their workers in the course of their occupation, or of the illnesses the Act protects.” Serious or slight: the Act sets no threshold. And occupational illnesses go in the same register.

2. 2

   Step 2: Five days for the written report

   The second sentence sets the deadline: “Within five days after an accident occurs the employer shall file a written report with the Administrator of the State Insurance Fund Corporation on blank forms the Administrator supplies.” Five days from when the accident occurs, in writing, on the blanks the Fund itself supplies. The Act does not name or number those blanks; the form numbers that appear in our other guides come from the CFSE’s pages, not from here.

3. 3

   Step 3: The seven things the report must carry

   The Act lists them, and they are useful for checking whether what the employer filed is complete. “That report shall contain the name and the nature of the worker’s occupation, the wage they earned, the location of the establishment, the name, age, sex and occupation of the injured worker, and shall state the date and hour of any accident causing the injury, the nature and cause of the injury and any other information required.” Note “the wage they earned”: the dietas and all the compensation are computed from that figure, so if it is wrong, everything downstream is wrong.

4. 4

   Step 4: First sanction: up to five thousand dollars

   The Act sets the consequence of not reporting, and it sets it in court, not in the agency. “Employers who refuse or neglect to make the reports this Article requires shall be sanctioned by the Court of First Instance, Superior Section, with a fine not exceeding five thousand (5,000) dollars.” Two verbs: refuse and neglect. Neglect is enough.

5. 5

   Step 5: Second sanction: reporting wrongly on purpose

   It is different from the previous one and punishes different conduct. “Any employer who intentionally and maliciously reports a work-accident case improperly to the Administrator of the State Insurance Fund Corporation shall be liable for all the expenses incurred by reason of that report.” It is not a fixed fine: it is answering for all the expenses the improper report generated. And the two words that must be proved are in the text: intentionally and maliciously.

6. 6

   Step 6: Third sanction: lending your policy to another employer

   This is the most severe one and it describes a concrete practice. “Any employer who reports as their own an accident happening to a worker who works for an employer that, in violation of the Act, has not insured, shall commit a misdemeanour and shall be sanctioned with imprisonment not exceeding six (6) months or a fine not exceeding five thousand (5,000) dollars or both penalties at the court’s discretion.” That is: reporting under your policy the accident of a worker of an employer who did not insure is a crime, not an administrative irregularity.

7. 7

   Step 7: How those amounts are collected

   The Act closes the article with two precisions. “Both the expenses and the fines shall be enforced against the employer’s property.” And it adds an alternative to imprisonment: “Provided that the court, in its discretion, may impose the penalty of community service in place of imprisonment.”

8. 8

   Step 8: If your employer does not report

   Article 11 says what happens to the employer, but it does not say how the worker gets their case moving in the meantime. That is a different route, and the CFSE publishes it itself: the worker’s voluntary report, with its form and its path through Triage and Filings. We have it in the guide on the employer who does not report the accident. They are worth reading together: one tells you what you can do, the other tells you what it can cost them.

9. 9

   Step 9: Hospital records count as evidence

   Article 12 fits in one sentence and solves a practical evidence problem. “Copies of hospital records, kept in accordance with the law and certified by the persons in whose custody they are as true and complete, shall be admissible in evidence in proceedings before the Administrator, the Supreme Court, the Industrial Commission or any Commissioner.” Two conditions: that the records are kept in accordance with the law, and that whoever holds them certifies them as true and complete.

The accident report is filed by the employer with the Administrator of the State Insurance Fund Corporation, on the blanks the Fund itself supplies. The Article 11 sanctions are imposed by the Court of First Instance, Superior Section; the Act does not describe how the complaint gets there and we do not invent it. Certified hospital records are presented in proceedings before the Administrator, the Supreme Court, the Industrial Commission or any Commissioner. The Act publishes no addresses, phone numbers or form numbers in these articles, and we read none here.

• Believing only serious injuries must be registered: the Act requires registering serious or slight ones, and also the illnesses it protects.
• Counting the five days from when the worker gives notice: the Act counts them from when the accident occurs.
• Reporting verbally or by phone: the Act requires a written report, on the blanks the Fund supplies.
• Leaving out the wage the worker earned: the dietas and all later compensation are computed from that figure.
• Assuming neglect is not sanctioned: the Act punishes the employer who “refuses or neglects” to make the reports, with a fine of up to five thousand dollars.
• Believing the Fund imposes that fine: it is imposed by the Court of First Instance, Superior Section.
• Reporting a case improperly thinking nothing happens: if intentionally and maliciously, the employer is liable for all expenses that report generates.
• Reporting under your policy the accident of a worker of an uninsured employer: the Act makes it a misdemeanour, with up to six months or five thousand dollars or both.
• As a worker, waiting for the employer to report without doing anything: the worker’s voluntary report is a separate route and the CFSE publishes it.
• Dismissing hospital records as proof: certified as true and complete by whoever holds them, they are admissible before the Administrator, the Industrial Commission and the Supreme Court.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Corporación del Fondo del Seguro del Estado (CFSE)

  Fondo del Seguro del Estado

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov