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Workers compensation claims may become more prevalent with colder weather setting in. People track in ice and snow, making floors slippery, and workers are therefore more prone to slip and fall accidents.
All employers must carry workers compensation insurance. Workers compensation can help you recover from an accident by paying your medical bills and lost wages.
Even though getting medical attention is always top priority, you can also take actions to help your workers compensation claim.
Sometimes employers or insurance companies fight workers compensation claims. They may state that the injury occurred under different circumstances or that your injury did not occur at work. Or they may allege that your injury is not that serious or find some other reason to argue that the claim is invalid. For this reason, it is wise to take the following actions in support of your claim.
This is one of the most important things to do as soon as possible. Notifying your employer sets the wheels in motion for a workers comp claim.
Accident conditions can change rapidly. For example, if a slippery floor caused the fall, someone may wipe up the floor right away so no one else falls. Today most people carry cell phones and they have cameras and videos that allow you to capture an accident hazard immediately. With the click of a button, you can snap a picture of the floor and surroundings that showed a lack of signage to warn about the condition. Document all the evidence you can, showing that your injury occurred on the job.
Workers who saw you fall can testify as to what happened. Writing down the name and contact information of witnesses can help support your workers comp claim, if testimony becomes necessary.
When workers pursue claims without seeking legal representation, they often run into difficulties they would not otherwise face. This may be partly due to lack of experience with workers comp claims. However, it is also due to the fact that insurance companies want to diminish the amount of benefits paid or whenever possible, deny a claim. An attorney can help protect your rights. It costs nothing to arrange a consultation with a workers compensation lawyer to see whether you have a valid claim.
Hazardous property conditions can result in slips and falls. A slip and fall accident may not strike you as a serious type of accident, but incidents exists where people have fallen, hit their heads and died from concussions in slip and fall accidents. Elderly people in particular often suffer serious injuries from broken hips, backs and other broken bones in slip and fall accidents.
Slip and fall cases arise when a dangerous condition in a walking surface causes a person to slip and fall. Examples of dangerous surfaces are surfaces where there is water, ice, oil, soap, holes, cracks, torn carpet or other defects. The surface can be outdoors or indoors.
The property owner must have been negligent about handling the dangerous condition in order for grounds to exist to pursue a slip-and-fall case. In other words, the property owner should have known about the hazardous condition and then failed to repair, clean, wipe up or rope off the area or warn about the danger.
The New York Bar Association provides the following examples of slip and fall cases where property owners may have failed to adequately deal with a dangerous property condition:
In every case listed above, when property owners do not know or could not have known about the dangerous condition, negligence may not exist, and there would be no grounds for a case.
Our attorneys at Sackstein Sackstein & Lee, LLP have extensive experience representing clients in slip and fall accidents.
You may think of a slip and fall accident as not being serious, but people often suffer severe injuries from slip and fall accidents. Some even die from concussions.
An unusual slip and fall accident occurred with a woman last June in Plainfield, N.J in front of Acme Windows on Somerset Street. CBS New York reported that a 67-year old woman tripped over a cellar door that was left open and fell into a basement. The accident was caught on video. She appears to be looking at her cell phone right before the fall, and most people would conclude she was simply distracted and did not see the open door.
What people watching the video would not realize though was that the woman was legally blind and a diabetic.
The woman’s son said she eats regularly and checks her sugar periodically. When she felt slightly nauseous, she checked her phone to see what the time was. Seconds later she fell. Fire crews arrived to rescue her and pulled her out on a stretcher.
The woman’s blindness makes it difficult for her to see blended colors, according to her son. Workers doing pipe repairs had left the cellar doors open. If they had put out colored cones, she probably would have been alerted to the open doors.
The woman suffered a serious injury but later her condition became stable.
Property owners have a have a legal responsibility to ensure there are no hazards for people coming onto their property. In this case city workers are responsible for creating a safe environment. The handicaps of disabled people are something that people who do not have disabilities may not take into consideration.
If you experience a slip and fall accident on someone else’s property and you consider property conditions were unsafe, get a legal opinion.
Sackstein Sackstein & Lee, LLP has decades of experience representing clients in all kinds of cases. We can investigate an accident, establish liability and help you recover compensation to offset damages.