Personal Injury Lawyer

If a workplace accident recently caused you to sustain an injury, one of your first thoughts is likely that you should file a workers’ compensation claim. While this is a good thought to have and you must typically act quickly to report your injury to the appropriate authorities and receive medical attention, you may also consider filing a personal injury claim. In fact, in some cases, you can receive more compensation through a personal injury claim than you can through receiving your workers’ compensation benefits. Even if you considered filing a personal injury claim, you may be worried that this is “suing” your boss, however, there may be other parties responsible for your injury that are not your employer. For more information on when it is best to file a workers’ compensation claim or a personal injury claim, keep reading.

Filing For Workers’ Compensation Benefits

One of the biggest differences between workers’ compensation and personal injury claims is that you likely will not have a hard time proving fault with workers’ compensation. Unless you personally caused the accident that harmed you because you were acting negligently or illegally, it is not too hard to show that you were either at work performing your tasks or off-site performing work-related tasks. When this happens, the law entitles you to create a claim for workers’ compensation so that you can recover compensation for medical bills and time you must take off work. This coverage is here for exactly this purpose: to protect the workers if their job injured them in some way. However, it is imperative to know that once you claim workers’ compensation, you cannot file a lawsuit against your employer.

Filing For a Personal Injury Claim

You can file for personal injury claims against almost anyone, assuming you can prove that someone else directly caused your injuries. That said, you must prove that the other person is responsible for your personal injury, through intentional or negligent acts. In fact, one of the main difference between a workers’ compensation claim and a personal injury claim is that a worker can still recover workers’ compensation in some cases even if they are the responsible party. On the other hand, personal injury claims can help you recover an even larger set of damages, including:

• A loss of future earning capacity
• Lost wages
• Pain and suffering, and
• Medical expenses

There is a greater potential to recover a broader set of damages when you file for a personal injury claim than if you were to file a workers’ compensation claim.

When Does It Make Sense To File a Personal Injury Claim?

Determining which claim is better to file can be hard, but having an attorney on your side can make this process much smoother. It may be better to file a personal injury claim if:

• Your employer seemed to intentionally cause you harm.
• Your injury happened because of a defective product.
• Your employer does not have workers’ compensation insurance.

For more information on filing a workers’ compensation claim, or to receive help in determining whether a personal injury claim may be better suited for these circumstances, contact a New York work injury attorney today.

Thank you to our friends and contributors at Polsky, Shouldice & Rosen, P.C. for their insight into workers compensation claims vs. personal injury claims.