If you’ve been injured as a result of a work-related accident, or may have even lost a loved one due to such an accident, you may be able to seek compensation for your injury or loss through a civil case. When an injury occurs, compensation for the damages incurred as a result of that injury are sought through bringing a personal injury claim against any and all negligent parties. When loss of life occurs because of some person’s or entity’s negligence, compensation for that loss is claimed through a wrongful death claim. Dallas personal injury attorney Michael Grossman offers the following short article to help further explain what is needed in order for either of these types of cases to likely result in a beneficial outcome for the victim, i.e. the plaintiff.
In either a personal injury case or a wrongful death lawsuit, three issues must be proven in order for a plaintiff to have a legitimate case against a defendant. First, the defendant must have owed a legal duty to the plaintiff, and have subsequently violated that legal duty. For example, an employer owes a legal duty to their employees to ensure a safe working environment. When an accident occurs because the working environment is dangerous, then the employer has violated their legal duty to their employees.
Secondly, the defendant must be shown to have somehow been negligent in their duty towards you, and that negligence somehow helped to cause or have played a role in your accident or your loved one’s death. There are two types of negligence: standard and gross. Standard negligence could be equated to simple carelessness, such as a cleaning crew forgetting to put up a sign denoting a wet floor, which could result in someone slipping and injuring themselves. It could also occur in a vehicle accident in which a person is momentarily distracted and then causes a wreck resulting in injury or death. Gross negligence, on the other hand, requires that the negligent party was well aware that the likelihood of an accident causing injury or death was very great before the accident occurred. Drunk driving is a sad but common example of gross negligence. In relation to work-related accidents, an employer can exhibit gross negligence when they know of a safety hazard but fail to do anything to rectify the situation, and a worker is seriously injured or dies as a result of their inaction. This is an especially important provision to remember in regards to companies that are covered by workers compensation insurance, which will be discussed shortly.
Thirdly, the plaintiff, i.e. the victim, must have incurred some type of damages. Damages do not refer to an actual injury or damage, but to the financial amount tied to that injury or damage. Damages can be medical bills, funeral expenses, lost wages, lost future wages, property damage bills, compensation for pain and suffering, or other financial setbacks, all of which are dependent on the type of case and the circumstances surrounding the particular accident. In other words, the plaintiff must be seeking compensation because the injury or loss that they’ve sustained has cost them a certain amount of financial loss. This amount is known as damages. An experienced work-related accident attorney, like Dallas work injury lawyer Michael Grossman, will work to faithfully calculate all damages incurred so that a plaintiff can stand to receive full and fair compensation for their injury or loss.
However, proving these three issues is only the initial step in seeking compensation for a work-related injury or loss. Two more pressing issues must be addressed before a specific legal route towards compensation can be chosen. The first issue is the question of the worker’s status in regards to their employer, and the second issue is the question of whether or not the employer is covered by workers’ compensation insurance.
If a worker is legally defined as a contractor, the employer will most likely not be held liable for an injury or death that occurred while the contractor worked for them. While certain exceptions exist dependant on the particular circumstances of the case, for the most part a contractor is responsible for their own safety while on the job. However, there can sometimes be outside parties that may have also contributed to the injury or loss, in which these parties can then be held liable for a contractor’s injury or loss. As such, a contract worker who’s been injured, or a family that has lost a loved one that is a contractor, should still consider contacting legal help in order to make sure that all liable parties are held responsible for their particular portions of negligence. However, at least in Texas, the legal definition of an employee is fairly expansive, which means that a capable attorney can work to prove that a legitimate employee-employer relationship exists based off of certain questions in regards to how that relationship functioned. This can often be accomplished even in spite of the fact that an employer may have called a worker a “contractor” during the entirety of their time working with that employee. Once this relationship has been established, then a legitimate employee could bring a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit against the negligent employer.
However, even that might be prevented if the employer is covered by workers’ compensation insurance. If the employer is covered, which is also known as being a subscriber, then the employer is immune to lawsuits from injured victims or bereaved family members. In such instances, the victim or victim’s family members must seek compensation through the workers’ compensation policy’s insurance agency. However, as noted above, there is an exception to this rule in Texas if an employer’s gross negligence led to a death. In this instance, if for example an employee died because of bad safety equipment that that company knew about for months but failed to fix, then the company would have been grossly negligent and a wrongful death lawsuit could be brought to bear against them by the victim’s family. However, proving gross negligence requires a high standard of proof, so it’s important that a family seeking compensation for their loved one’s loss enlist the help of an experienced wrongful death lawyer like Dallas wrongful death attorney Michael Grossman.
Unfortunately, because many companies know that an injured worker or a bereaved family aren’t allowed to bring a lawsuit against a company that subscribes to workers’ comp, many companies will act as if they are subscribers in order to prevent an aggrieved party from filing a lawsuit. Often, because these parties simply do not know any better, they will settle with the negligent employer for a compensation package that is often much less than what would be considered fair for their loss. As such, enlisting the help of a competent attorney can often prevent such a scenario from occurring as a work-related accident attorney should be able to easily assess whether or not a negligent employer is covered by workers’ compensation insurance.
As you can tell, there are many hurdles that often exist in work-related personal injury or wrongful death cases. However, with the help of an experienced work-related accident attorney, a victim or a victim’s family can often overcome these hurdles in order to receive compensation for their pain or loss. If you’ve been injured while on the job, compensation can help you get back on your feet and assist you in being compensated for medical bills or lost wages. If you’ve had the misfortune to have lost a loved one due to a work-related accident, compensation can help with medical expenses, funeral expenses, lost wages, lost future wages, and pain and suffering. Don’t allow the apparent challenges in these particular kinds of cases prevent you from seeing justice done in your particular case. By pursuing legal action you will likely accomplish two things: you can stand to receive compensation that can help you return to living your life and also work to see to it that future, similar accidents don’t have to occur to someone else.
Knowing what to do in the aftermath of suffering an injury or a loss as a result of a work-related accident can be confusing. By contacting legal help soon after you’ve been hurt or have lost a loved one, you will likely receive beneficial help that can guide you towards your proper legal options in your personal injury or wrongful death work-related accident case.
On Veteran’s Day last week, 