It’s all too common for corporations to take advantage of injured workers. Without adequate legal representation, many employees are stuck trying to manage their injury and its severe impact on their families while attempting to find the time and energy to hold the negligent company accountable. Many insurance claims are skewed in favor of the corporations, ignoring the pain and financial struggles that the victims and their families face. When you are injured on the job, you need a Lake Charles work injury lawyer and Cox Law firm attorneys are experienced in handling such cases like workplace injuries.
Without the support of a strong legal team, too many injuries are wrongly minimized in the compensation process. Without compensation packages that support their family’s needs, many people are put into difficult situations where they need to force themselves to choose between working while injured or going without the necessities to support their overall health and well-being.
Most workers who are injured on the job are covered by workers’ compensation. But workers’ compensation only provides baseline coverage, paying for time away from the job and medical costs. It does not pay for diminished earning capacity, rehabilitation, career retraining, or pain and suffering.
If Worker’s Compensation doesn’t begin to cover your expenses after a workplace injury, you may file a third-party claim against someone other than your immediate employer. When you do this, you are out of the realm of workers’ compensation and into the realm of personal injury law, where more aspects of an injury are compensable, including lost wages, benefits, and pain and suffering.
When Worker’s Compensation cannot provide enough compensation to cover an individual’s expenses related to an injury, the injured party has the option to make a third-party claim to supplement the damages they’ve received. With the help of an experienced personal injury firm, you may be able to file multiple claims for your injury, combining workers’ comp with a third-party suit, to cover all your losses. The third-party can be any of the following:
Under the Jones Act, offshore workers can obtain the same kind of compensation as workers on land. The Jones Act provides an avenue for paying medical costs and living expenses in the wake of a serious injury on a ship, boat, mobile platform, or other vessels.
At the Cox Law Firm, we only represent plaintiffs — those who have been injured. Many law firms exist to serve big companies, but our lawyers primarily serve the average individual who has suffered grievous injury. We also help seriously injured workers file for Social Security Disability Insurance in Lake Charles. If you have been injured at your place of work and have been denied compensation, we suggest that you consider a third-party personal injury claim. For more information, contact the Lake Charles injury attorneys at the Cox Law Firm at 337-436-6611.
When our team works with you, we won’t settle for “just enough” to close a case.
We aggressively pursue every aspect of the law designed to protect you from this all-too-common form of exploitation. Having powerful legal representation can transform hardship and pain into peace of mind with the knowledge that you and your family will have what you need while you recover.
Workers’ compensation insurance protects employees who are injured from their work, and it also protects employers from being personally liable for employee injuries. Nearly every employer in Louisiana is required to carry workers’ compensation insurance. When filing a claim under workers’ comp, you do not have to prove that an employer or other party is to blame for your accident. If you were injured while on the clock, you are likely eligible for workers’ comp benefits.
Workers’ compensation claims can cover injuries sustained by a sudden accident and those that occurred due to long-term repetitive movement or exposure to hazardous materials.
In most cases, no, you cannot file a civil claim against your employer. The workers’ compensation system exists to prevent this. However, if your employer is required by state law to have workers’ compensation insurance and does not, you could file a claim against them. You can also file a personal injury claim if your injury was caused by an employer’s deliberate actions.
If you were injured while on the clock due to the actions of a third party, you could file a civil claim against that party on top of a workers’ compensation claim. If you were involved in a car accident while completing your work duties, and the other driver was at fault, you could recover workers’ compensation benefits and file with the at-fault driver’s insurance provider.
A successful workers’ compensation claim will cover the majority of your losses from an accident. These include:
Your disability benefits rely on the amount of time your injuries are expected to impact you, the severity of your injuries, and whether you are able to complete a limited amount of job duties.
In Louisiana, you have one year to file for a workers’ compensation claim. If you don’t file within that statute of limitations, you lose your ability to recover financial losses. If your injury was the fault of a third party, and you are eligible to file a personal injury claim against that party, the statute of limitations for a personal injury claim is also one year from the date you sustained the injury.
In situations where you have a developmental illness or a repetitive motion injury that took time to be noticeable, you may have extra time. Depending on the situation, the one-year countdown may begin from the day you discovered the injury or illness or the day you should have discovered it.
It’s important to contact an attorney as soon as possible after a workplace injury or the discovery of a developmental illness or injury. They can determine if you are still within the statute of limitations for a claim. If you wait too long to contact an attorney, they will not have the necessary time to investigate the incident before the statute of limitations is up.
Knowing that your attorney is committed to taking your case to trial will often encourage insurance companies to deal more fairly with you, which enables us to pursue the level of compensation that will make a difference for you. It will also discourage them from delaying and using other tactics to withhold your rightful benefits.
Having our experienced legal team representing you means that you can focus on the important part, recovery, while having the reassurance that we are advocating forcefully for you with insurance and court. Contact the Cox Law Firm so we can advocate for you as soon as possible. Our dedicated team will study your case and bring their expertise together to support you. The sooner we act, the sooner you can get the compensation you deserve.
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