Bamberg, SC Work Injury Lawyer
Work accidents can devastate your family. You go to work and do your job to support yourself and your family, and when things go wrong and you get injured, it can take away your livelihood. In many cases, the employer or another party should be held accountable for what happened to you, and our lawyers can fight to make that happen.
Although damages can never reverse the effects of an injury, they can cover the resulting medical bills and lost wages to help your family. In some cases, you can also recover compensation for the non-economic damages you faced, like pain and suffering. However, how you file your claim – and who you file it against – will often change what damages are available to you.
For a free evaluation of your potential case, call Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers’ work injury attorneys at (803) 451-4000.
Damages for Work Injury Claims in Bamberg, SC
When you file a lawsuit for work-related injuries, you could be entitled to all the damages you faced. However, your ability to file a lawsuit is limited because you cannot sue your employer directly. The damages you get through insurance claims through an employer might be different, but we will discuss those changes below.
Otherwise, our work injury lawyers can help you seek all of these damages in a lawsuit after your accident at work:
Lost Wages
You are at work to make money, but getting hurt at work can take away your ability to earn income. As such, replacement wages will be incredibly important to your case. Our attorneys can help you claim all the wages you missed, as well as any ongoing lost wages you will face going forward. You will lose money in the future if you have to take a lower-paying position, go on light-duty work, or become totally disabled by your injury. Accounting for these lost wages takes some thoughtful predictions about when you would have retired and what raises you are now missing out on, but our lawyers can seek financial experts to help with these calculations and projections.
Medical Expenses
Your road to recovery might be quick or might take the rest of your life. As such, medical care costs will vary greatly from case to case, and they depend heavily on your specific case. You can claim any medical bills you already faced if your injury has healed up, but if you need ongoing care, you may also claim those amounts. Again, medical experts might be needed to detail what ongoing care needs you will face.
Non-Economic Damages
Lawsuits can also help you recover compensation for the other damages you face – the mental, emotional, and physical harm of being injured. Often called “pain and suffering,” these damages can cover the fear you faced in the accident, the hopelessness of facing a long road to recovery, and even the physical pain you feel from the injury. You do not need specific evidence of how much these so-called “general damages” cost you. Still, our lawyers can use a few different calculation methods to include these damages in your lawsuit.
Punitive Damages
Lawsuits can also recover punitive damages from willfully dangerous parties, but there is a higher evidentiary standard to prove that punitive damages are needed. These damages are not paid based on the harm you faced but rather on how bad the defendant’s actions were. As such, they are reserved only for very bad cases where the injuries were caused by a party who should have known better rather than for truly “accidental” cases.
Different Ways to Recover Damages for a Work Injury Claim in Bamberg, SC
When you are injured, you may not be able to sue your employer for a work injury. Workers’ Compensation is instead used to help you get compensation without needing to prove that anyone was at fault. In fact, this system can even pay you for injuries you accidentally caused yourself at work. However, the trade-off is that damages through this system are reduced to medical coverage and 2/3 of your lost earnings; there are no pain and suffering/non-economic damages or punitive damages.
When you file a lawsuit, you have to prove fault before you can get damages paid, but you could conceivably get higher damages when all is said and done. However, since you cannot file your lawsuit against your employer, you need to find a different party to sue. Suppose you were hit by a negligent driver, injured by defective safety gear, hurt by a defective tool/product, or injured by some party other than your employer. In that case, you may be able to sue them directly and get full damages from them.
Filing a Workers’ Compensation claim and a lawsuit together is sometimes possible, with the lawsuit covering the rest of the damages you would not get through Workers’ Compensation. However, you still need to have a valid third-party defendant to sue, and your employer’s insurance carrier may try to claim back some of the damages they paid you from the proceeds of your lawsuit. Because of this, it is always important to speak with our lawyers about how much your case should be worth and how best to get the damages.
Note that independent contractors usually are not covered by insurance, so they are usually allowed to sue their client/employer in cases where employees cannot.
Work Injuries You Can File a Claim for in Bamberg, SC
When it comes to claims under your employer’s Workers’ Compensation, any injuries that happened while working within the scope of your job duties should be covered. If the accident was not strictly part of your job, you may be able to sue, allowing you to get damages for injuries during a commute or on lunch break. An injury lawsuit is an injury lawsuit, whether it was actually connected to your work or not. You can also sue people other than your employers for work-related injuries. Our attorneys can assess your injury and the facts of how it happened and help you determine whether it qualifies for coverage or might allow you to sue, separate from that insurance system.
Call Our Work Injury Attorneys in Bamberg, SC Today
Call (803) 451-4000 for a free case review with the work injury attorneys at Burriss Ridgeway Injury Lawyers.