What Are The Most Common Injuries In The Construction Industry? Many injuries sustained as a result of an accident at a construction site typically begin with a physician’s initial diagnosis of a sprain or strain. These minor injuries, however, may worsen and require further medical treatment and tests by other physicians. Spinal Injuries Caused By Construction Accidents Injuries sustained as a result of an accident at work in the construction industry may initially be diagnosed as a sprain or strain affecting the neck or back. These injuries, however, may actually be a herniated or bulging disc in the neck or back. These medical conditions require surgery and/or long-term pain management. A diagnosis of a herniated or bulging disc in the neck or back could result in the physician’s prescription for permanent work restrictions. This could impact the injured worker’s ability…Read More
All our team members are North Carolina Board Certified Workers’ Compensation attorneys. Since our inception, Cardinal Law Partners have worked with hundreds of claimants who have varying levels of concerns and worries about filing Workers’ Compensation claims. Most clients are apprehensive when it comes to recovering damages because of potential retaliation from their employers. Cardinal Law Partners is here to assure you are entitled to Workers’ Comp benefits and can file a claim to receive them. Employers Are Not The Ones Paying For Damages In many cases, a Workers’ Compensation claim has an employer and an insurance company named in the case. Every employer in North Carolina that has three or more employees is required by law to offer Workers’ Compensation coverage. Companies that fail to follow this mandate face substantial fines and penalties. When a Worker’s Compensation claim is…Read More
The North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act is a “form driven” legal process. This means that rather than filing complicated legal documents, injured workers and employer are expected to file specific forms required by the North Carolina Industrial Commission. Some of the most important forms are filed at the very beginning. The injured worker is responsible for filing the Form 18 and the employer is responsible for filing the Form 19. The North Carolina Board Certified Workers’ Compensation Attorneys at Cardinal Law Partners have helped clients file hundreds of Industrial Commission forms during their extensive years of practice. What Does The Injured Worker Need To Include In The Form 18? The Form 18 is the “Notice of Accident to Employer and Claim of Employee, Representative, or Dependent.” The injured worker needs to specify the time of the injury, the date of…Read More
The attorneys at Cardinal Law Partners have spoken to hundreds of clients about their workplace and motor vehicle accidents. We understand that not all the injury symptoms appear immediately. Sometimes, the effects of an accident manifest themselves hours or days later. Cardinal Law Partners has years of experience helping clients develop strong cases where the symptoms that result in disability did not immediately materialize. Insurance Companies Fight Delayed Injury Symptoms After a car accident, the insurance company looks at several key components of the accident report to determine their liability for a claim. Early documentation is instrumental in deciding whether an insurance company pays or fights. Those first components include: What was the damage estimate from law enforcement? When a police officer arrives on the scene of an accident, they often estimate the vehicle damage. Insurance companies use this estimate…Read More
Will Your Workers’ Compensation Benefits Be Taxed?… Receiving compensation for a workplace injury or a work-related occupational disease is a bad deal for the worker. In North Carolina, the injured worker gets only a portion of their average weekly wage for the weeks they miss from work. The amount injured workers receive is only 2/3 of their average gross weekly pay amount. This often places a strain on the injured worker financially and raises all sorts of questions when it comes to paying taxes. Generally, No Taxes Are Paid For Workers’ Compensation Benefits The good news about receiving weekly workers’ compensation benefits is that they are generally not taxed by either North Carolina or the Federal Government. Pursuant to IRS publications, amounts received as workers’ compensation for an occupational sickness or injury are fully exempt from tax as long as…Read More
If you practice workers’ compensation law and represent injured workers, then it will not take long before you need to advise a client on light duty. It becomes the same story every time. The worker suffers an injury while working. Someone from the employer tells the worker to seek treatment from the “company doctor” or some other physician that the workers’ compensation insurance company selects. Often before the cast comes off, or the scan results come back, or a specialist is consulted, the first doctor that the injured worker sees sends the worker back to the job on a “light duty” basis. A couple of things about light duty: Why does the employer want someone back on the job that cannot perform all of the normal job tasks because of their limitations? Often, it is not the employer that wants…Read More
IME stands for Independent Medical Examination. In my experience, there is rarely anything independent about the medical examinations. If your treating doctor (the physician that the insurance company originally selected to treat you at a place relatively close to where you live and work) recommends a surgery or expensive treatment, the workers’ compensation insurance company may send the injured worker for an IME before agreeing to authorize the doctor’s recommendations. In 2011 the law changed so that workers’ compensation insurance companies could send injured workers to as many IMEs as they wanted. As long as the injured worker was requesting benefits, the workers’ compensation carrier could request an IME. There was another big change with respect to IMEs. The workers’ compensation insurance company could have their attorney pick up the phone and call the IME physician about the injured worker’s…Read More
All too often I speak to injured workers about their potential workers’ compensation claims months after they were injured. Whether it is because they did not believe their injury was too severe, or whether their employer promised them help with their injury, many injured workers choose a “wait and see” approach when determining whether they need to file something with the employer or the insurance company. The best settlements in my experience are in cases where the injured worker sought proper documentation from the very beginning. In the absence of documentation, the employer and insurance company are able to challenge the injured worker about what happened when. The Industrial Commission determines a claimant’s credibility in large part about what the documents from early in the case show. There is a great deal of lawyer advertising in the public – on…Read More
Why Have I Not Heard Anything After Reporting My Injury To My Employer? There are several reasons why you may not have been contacted by anyone concerning your injury at work after reporting the injury to your employer: 1. Your employer may not have reported your injury to their workers’ compensation insurance carrier. Just because you reported the injury at work to your employer, this does not mean that they have taken the appropriate actions to address the possible benefits owed for the work injury. For employers with 3 or more employees, the employer is required to provide workers’ compensation coverage for its employees. When an employer obtains workers’ compensation coverage for its employees the insurance carrier providing this coverage will charge the employer premiums in order to provide this coverage for its employees. When an employer reports an injury…Read More
What Is The Process To Obtain Benefits For My Injury At Work? Any time someone is injured at work, the first thing you need to do is report the injury to your employer. This notice of injury may be reported to the employer verbally or in writing. Although you can provide verbal notice of any injury to your employer, I always recommend written notice of the injury to the employer so that there is documentation of the reported injury to the employer. This written notice can be via a letter to the employer or can be provided via completing an accident report for the employer. The report of injury to the employer should be provided within 30 days of the date of injury. Although the injured worker has 30 days to report the injury, I always recommend reporting the injury…Read More
