Labor Jobs and Injuries

Workers’ compensation is designed to protect workers from injuries that occur on the job. Instead of suing your employer if you get hurt, you may be required to recover damages under the worker’s compensation program. This means that instead of filing a lawsuit to recover for lost wages and medical bills that result from labor injuries, you have to file a worker’s compensation claim instead.

Workers Compensation for Labor Injuries

Although there are federal laws to protect government workers, most workers’ compensation laws are administered on a state-by-state basis.  In order to comply with workers’ compensation laws, most employers have workers’ comp insurance. These insurance companies investigate injuries and pay claims. 

In order to file a worker’s compensation claim, you must be injured in the course of your job. In other words, you must sustain some type of labor related injury while doing something work related. The definition of a labor related injury can be broad. Some jobs may cause specific injuries, while other injuries are more general and might be sustained in a number of different work environments.

Common Labor Injuries

Labor injuries can be divided into four main categories:

• Injuries from trauma or accident: This is the most common type of workers’ compensation injury. Any one-time accident falls under this category. This can include everything from slipping and falling at work to getting your hand caught in a piece of construction equipment on the job. Case law suggests that even injury sustained at an employee-sponsored sporting event can constitute a labor injury for purposes of a worker’s comp claim if you were required to attend the event.
• Repetitive Stress Injuries: This is an injury that occurs as a result of repeatedly doing the same activity over and over as part of your job. For example, a typist who gets carpal tunnel syndrome might be able to file a worker’s comp claim for a repetitive stress injury. A meat packer who continually lifts heavy animal carcasses and as a result develops tendonitis of the shoulder might also be able to file a worker’s comp claim, citing a repetitive stress injury.
• Mental Trauma: If something happens at work that causes you such severe mental anguish that you are unable to work or require medical care, you may be able to recover for that injury. This mental trauma might be associated with a physical injury you sustain. For example, if you lose your hand that might be traumatic enough to render you unable to work. The mental trauma might also be the result of seeing something very upsetting at work, such as watching a co-worker fall off of a ladder to their death.
• Industry Specific Injury: Some industries are likely to cause specific illnesses or injuries that wouldn’t happen if you didn’t work in that industry. For example, in a famous worker’s compensation case called Gacioch v. Stroh Brewery Co., 466 N.W. 2d 302, a widow was able to win a worker’s compensation claim on behalf of her late husband who became an alcoholic when he worked in a brewery where the workers were offered free beer. While this case was somewhat out of the ordinary, there are plenty of industry-specific injuries that are likely to occur only as a result of the specific job.  Common examples include mining and welding.

Determining Liability

When you are injured in a labor related injury, you need to tell your employer right away. Some states require you to tell your employer that you were injured as soon as possible, while others give you between 30 and 90 days to let your employer know you were injured on the job. You will also need to go to a doctor as soon as possible to get proper medical documentation of your injury.

Your employer usually doesn’t make workers’ compensation determinations themselves. This means you don’t have to prove to your employer that you were injured and that it was your employer’s fault; you have to prove it to the insurance company.

In order to recover for a workers’ compensation claim, you need to prove that the injury is labor related. This means that you do not have to prove that the injury was definitely caused by a work-related event, just that it more then likely was.

Coverage Problems

In some cases, employees cannot recover for an injury under workers compensation if the employee did something negligent or unsafe to cause the injury. For example, employees might be prevented from recovering if they were drunk or on drugs while injured.

Employees may also be precluded from recovering under worker’s comp laws if they were injured while doing something that explicitly violated company policy. Finally, employees can’t recover if the injury was caused by a pre-existing medical condition that they hid from their employer.

Some employers or insurers will try to fight worker’s compensation claims, and prove that the employee was at fault. At other times, employers may try to argue that an employee isn’t really as injured as he or she claims to be. If any of these coverage issues arise, it is important to talk to an experienced labor law attorney.

Legal Help for Labor Injury Claims

An experienced labor law attorney can file your initial worker’s compensation claim and help you to document both your injury and the resulting disabilities. A labor law attorney can also help you fight for the compensation you deserve if your claim is denied.