An injury at work is awful on multiple levels. The first is the obvious physical harm and pain. The shock of an injury, followed by the hurt and recovery can take an incredible toll on even the strongest person. Remember, there’s a mental and emotional pain that comes with such an injury, too. Work, a place you spend so much of your time at is now the site of an awful injury. That’s the kind of hurt that can last long after an injury heals. When contemplating everything you’ll have to go through after suffering an injury at work, it’s natural to ask “what’s the point of a workers’ comp lawyer in Los Angeles?” The truth is that we can help you quite a bit.
Why a Workers’ Comp Lawyer in Los Angeles
Whenever the question of “workers’ comp” comes up, most people think they don’t qualify. Some people just hear “workers’ comp” and think that there’s no way they would be able to get that money. It’s important to keep in mind that you can file for workers’ comp if you’ve suffered an injury while on the job. You’ll notice the use of language here: “on the job.” That doesn’t mean you had to be in the office when you were hurt. Maybe you were out driving to pick up lunch for everyone. Perhaps you were out in the field but still working. If you have any questions about whether or not you can file for workers’ comp, that’s why we have free consultations.
That being said, “injured on the job” does not just mean that you suffered an accident on the job. When we hear “injured on the job” the first thing that comes to mind is someone falling down the stairs. Or, perhaps they’re hurt by a delivery truck, they slip and fall in the cafeteria, a monitor falls over onto their feet – the mental image a majority of people have about being injured on the job is an accident that occurs at a moment’s notice. While these are many of the accidents that occur on the job, and they are absolutely something you can file workers’ comp for, they aren’t the only kinds of work related injuries that you can file workers’ comp on.
Injuries Over Time
Many workers’ injuries develop over time. As we work and age, our bodies can get weaker or more brittle. This is true even if we’re strong, diligent, safe and good at what we do. The factory worker who’s in the fast paced shipping business, lifting and carrying heavy items every day for twenty years could get hurt at any time. That’s a worker who could suffer a work related injury without ever dropping one of those heavy items. Instead, maybe that person suffers knee or back pain from several years of work. These injuries, sometimes called “cumulative trauma injuries,” are something that workers’ comp could be filed on.
Of course, people who suffer injuries at work over a long period of time don’t just have to be burly factory workers. The administrative professional, particularly in today’s workplace, spends all day on the computer. If they aren’t typing on the computer, they’re typing on the company phone. And if they aren’t typing on the company phone, they’re on the company tablet, and so on. An administrative professional could spend years typing, just in front of the same keyboard for hours and days on end. Even the best typist could eventually develop carpal tunnel syndrome.
When that occurs, they deserve compensation, too. It makes sense if you think about it: this is a work related injury. Sure, the administrative professional didn’t drop something on their fingers, but they used them all day every day for decades, doing the same motion over and over again. Of course that would eventually take a toll. When it does, you don’t just have to suffer in silence. Workers’ comp is available so that you can get the kinds of benefits you deserve for your injuries.
Workers’ Comp: For Workers
Many people, when they hear about “workers’ comp” figure that it won’t help them with much. “Oh, it’s just a few bucks, it’s not worth filing for,” etc. This defeatist attitude is absolutely false. The benefits from workers’ comp can be absolutely helpful for your life. Beyond that, it can also ward off the feelings of regret that some have when they don’t file for workers’ comp. When you suffer an injury at work, it can compound the feeling if you realize, long after the deadline has passed, that you could’ve received compensation for the injuries that you suffered.
Perhaps most importantly, the benefits from workers’ comp can include the reimbursement of medical expenses. That can be an absolute financial lifesaver. Unfortunately, many of us don’t have as high of quality of health insurance as we would like to have. When you suffer an injury at work, this can be an enormous problem. Even the most financially responsible among us often don’t have enough saved up to pay for an extended recovery. This is where workers’ comp can come in so handy: it can pay for the recovery so that you don’t have to.
It’s important not to overlook how much this can affect your mental health, as well. When you’re laid up in a hospital bed, recovering from an injury at work, it’s absolutely natural to feel overwhelmed with worry. How are you going to make money? Will you be able to return to work? How will you provide for the people you care about in your life? And how are you going to pay for all of these medical bills? By eliminating even one of these worries (and workers’ comp can eliminate more than one) it can help you to focus on what’s most important during this time: your recovery.
Unfortunately, when you’re at home recovering from a work related injury or in the hospital, you probably can’t return to work. So, that’s even more money that you’re missing out on. It’s normal to feel like getting hurt is expensive in ways you never realized. On top of that, rushing back to work before you’re fully healed can lead to even more problems later on. Too many people have gone back to work before they should, only to aggravate and worsen injuries, making their recovery that much more difficult or out and out impossible.
Recover Lost Wages
That’s one of the many reasons that workers’ comp can help you to recover lost wages, too. You didn’t ask to be hurt at work. You certainly didn’t deserve it. So, you don’t deserve to be penalized for it. You would have been back at work, doing your job like any other day if you hadn’t gotten hurt in the first place. Recovering your lost wages can go a long way towards helping to re-establish the equilibrium of your life. In the aftermath of an injury, that can make an enormous difference.
Those are the main benefits to workers’ comp, but there are other ones that can be utilized in specific circumstances. For example, depending on the details in your case, you may be able to receive vocational training to return to the workforce. This can be utterly invaluable if your injury has left you unable to work at the level to which you were accustomed. Instead of having to try and do a job you could no longer do, instead you’re given an opportunity.
Those are just a few of the benefits of workers’ comp. Of course, every single case is different. We can sit down with you and figure out exactly how we can help your case. If you want to speak to an attorney, give us a call at (818) 975-3080 or you can send a message through our site.
