“If you’ve been hurt in an accident in McAllen, J.A. Davis & Associates is here to provide aggressive legal representation to ensure you receive the compensation you’re entitled to.”
How Does an Employer Benefit from Workers Comp?
The benefits to an employer from being a subscriber to workers’ compensation insurance can be enormous, as was touched on earlier. Basically, a subscriber is buying much more than just an insurance policy; it’s buying lawsuit protection. An injured worker cannot sue a subscribing company. Workers comp can provide some compensation to an injured employee to help cover a portion of medical expenses and lost pay, but the amount provided normally doesn’t come close to paying for all the medical bills an injured worker accrues and is woefully inadequate in covering lost wages. And just because you suffer a workplace injury, that does not automatically guarantee that you’ll get even that relative pittance. Workers comp payments come from the insurance provider, and many times that insurer will be determined to deny a claim and thus not have to pay anything to the injured worker. At the very least, that insurer will do whatever it can to pay the least amount of money it can possibly get away with. There are several instances in Texas every year where an injured worker’s injury claim is denied flat-out thanks to the efforts of an extremely aggressive insurance provider. But an experienced workers comp lawyer can work to ensure you do not have to suffer a similar injustice. More Information Here
Even though a subscribing company is shielded from a lawsuit, there are other legal methods you can employ to get fair restitution for your injury. There may be an exception that applies to your case that may allow you to take legal action against your employer, or you may be able to take action against a responsible third party, such as the manufacturer of a defective piece of equipment that may have led to the accident that caused your injury. More Information here
Exceptions in Workers Comp Cases
There are two very important exceptions regarding the workers’ compensation system that may help workplace accident victims or their families seek fair restitution. First, if a workplace accident occurs on a workers comp subscriber’s job site, and it results in the death of a worker, and it can be proven that the employer’s gross negligence led to the death, then the victim’s family can file a wrongful death lawsuit against that employer.
And for workers who suffer an injury, there may be a way to pursue legal action against another party. There could be multiple persons or entities to blame for the injury; a contractor, fellow employee, or an outside third party could have caused the accident. The workers’ comp lawyers at our Law Office know how to thoroughly explore all aspects of your case to identify and pursue legal action against those responsible third parties and find other means of obtaining compensation for injury victims.
What Happens if My Employer is a Workers Comp Non-Subscriber?
Personal injury litigation involving a claim filed by a worker against a non-subscriber workplace in a completely different manner than those regarding subscribing companies. When the Texas Legislature enacted workers comp law, it did so with the intention of trying to lighten the burdens of an incredibly overwhelmed state legal system. The thinking was, if the instances of worker’s injury lawsuits could be lessened, the entire legal system might be able to work much more efficiently. That’s why subscribers are shielded from lawsuits involving the workplace. Consequently, the law looks unfavorably toward companies that choose not to subscribe to workers comp insurance. You can say the law, in effect, “punishes” non-subscribers to leaving them wide open to personal injury litigation. It is far easier for injured workers to gain just restitution for medical expenses, lost pay, and pain and suffering from a non-subscribing company than it is a subscriber. The obvious difference is that an injured worker can sue a non-subscriber. And since there is no workers compensation claim to file in this kind of case, a victim will not be subjected to the onerous bureaucracy associated with the workers’ comp claims process.
But while it may seem like a slam-dunk, that it would be very simple to win a personal injury lawsuit against a non-subscriber, in reality, it’s not. A plaintiff, in this case, does, indeed, have more rights. But that in no way means the process is an easy one. These kinds of cases have a lot of complexity surrounding them; and experienced attorneys – by either working for the defense to minimize compensation awarded or for the plaintiff to increase compensation – can use these complexities to the benefit of their client. The attorneys at our Law Office are extremely familiar with non-subscriber personal injury litigation and can put that experience to use for you in making sure you are fairly compensated for the injury you have suffered due to the negligence of your employer.
Sometimes a claim can be resolved amicably out of court. Many times, however, that doesn’t happen and a lawsuit gets filed as a result. As stated before, when a case goes to trial, the plaintiff bears the burden of proof. Your side must prove the accident that led to your injury was caused by the employer’s negligence, and that you have incurred lost wages and lost future earning potential, medical expenses, and both emotional and physical pain and suffering as a result. This is another key difference in cases involving subscribing and non-subscribing defendants. In any case, involving a subscriber, “gross negligence” has to be proven – basically, the plaintiff has to prove that an employer habitually and recklessly created a hazardous workplace environment and that an injury-causing accident was inevitable. In a case involving a non-subscriber, however, the plaintiff needs only to prove “standard negligence,” meaning that someone’s momentary lack of focus led to the accident. This may be much easier to prove, but it still comes with several pitfalls.
