Hurt at work? Call now at 919-683-2175 for a free initial consult.
Workers’ compensation is a type of personal injury law that applies only to workplace injuries and illnesses. It is unlike regular personal injury law in that the injured person does not have to prove that someone else was at fault in causing the injury. All the injured person has to prove is that he or she was injured by an accident while they were doing their job. The accident could have been the employer’s fault, or the worker’s fault, or no one’s fault. As long as an injury arises within the “course and scope” of the injured worker’s job, then it’s covered.
Two Important Exceptions to the Accident Rule
There are a lot of exceptions in law. Here are two of the most important in workers’ compensation: If you hurt your back at work or you developed a hernia at work, then you do not have to show it was the result of an accident. Generally speaking, you just have to be able to point to a specific time while you were working that the back pain or hernia started. So, if you have filed a workers’ comp claim for a back injury or hernia and the insurance company has denied your case because they claim it was not the result of an accident, you might want to fight that denial.
What Benefits Are Available in a Comp Claim?
Before I tell you what the benefits are in a workers’ comp claim, I need to explain what you could get in a “regular” personal injury claim. Before workers comp, workplace injuries and illnesses were handled just like any other personal injury claim. The injured worker had to prove that their injury was the result of the employer’s negligence. If you could prove that, then you could get all the things you can get in any other personal injury case: lost wages, medical care, pain and suffering (and even punitive damages if the boss’s negligence was bad enough). On the other hand, if you couldn’t prove that the boss caused your injury through his fault (or if the boss could prove that you also were at fault), you got nothing. Again, because most work injuries are the result of accidents, in which no one is at fault, most people who were hurt at work got no compensation. However, in those cases in which the employer was liable, he was open to great liability. To resolve this problem, employers and employees came to an agreement of sorts. Under workers comp law, a claim became much easier to prove. If an injury was the result of an accident, then it was covered, no matter whose fault it was. This opened the door to many more claims. In exchange for allowing more claims, employees agreed to accept less benefits. So, you cannot get pain and suffering or punitive damages in a workers’ compensation case. Your benefits are limited to medical care and lost wages. But those “limited” benefits can be very helpful and generous!
Hurt at work? Call now at 919-683-2175 for a free initial consult.
