Archive for January, 2011

Many people who are injured while on the job may not realize that Workers’ Compensation may not be the only source of recovery.  Additional legal rights and options for recovery may be available if the injuries were caused by someone other than your employer or co-employee.  If another party was partially or fully at fault for the accident while you were working, you may have what is known as a “third-party liability” claim, which is a separate claim above and beyond the workers compensation claim.  These “third party liability” claims are not well known among the general public.  A competent personal injury law firm can help you determine if you have other sources of recovery for your losses and injuries.

Workers’ Compensation is a law that protects workers who have been injured in workplace accidents.  If you are injured at work, you are automatically entitled to workers’ compensation benefits.  Workers compensation is sometimes referred to as a “no fault” system, meaning that it does not matter who is to blame for the injury between the injured worker and the employer.  The employee is entitled to certain defined benefits that vary from state to state, but may include partial payment of the worker’s income until he or she is able to return to normal duties, medical expenses related to the injury, and a lump sum settlement for any permanent injuries.  However, the law limits the amount of these benefits.  The trade-off for receiving these “no-fault” benefits is that the injured worker is not allowed to file a liability lawsuit against his employer or a co-worker.

However, if you were injured by someone who does not work for the same employer as you, you can file a normal personal injury lawsuit against that person.  Third party liability claims typically exist under the following scenarios:

• Construction Accidents-  Many construction site injuries involve negligence by third parties given that multiple contractors are working on the construction site at the same time.
• Car Accidents-  If you are driving as part of your job and are involved in an accident caused by a motorist who you do not work with.
• Unsafe Premises-  Slips, trips, and falls that occur on property owned or maintained by someone other than the employer, such as a delivery driver that slips on a hazardous surface maintained by a customer.
• Product Liability-  If you were injured by a machine or defective piece of equipment at work, you can sue the manufacturer of that equipment.

A “third party liability” claim is an independent lawsuit, governed by the same laws, procedures, and limitations of any other liability lawsuit.  In a third party claim, unlike Workers’ Compensation, the injured worker must prove that another person was at fault. Unlike the workers compensation claim, a worker who files a third party liability lawsuit can recover the full range of damages suffered, such as all lost wages, medical expenses, pain and suffering, disability, an disfigurement.  However, the injured worker does not get to keep all of what is recovered in both cases. Typically, the employer of the injured worker and/or its workers compensation insurer has a right to be reimbursed to some degree on the settlement the injured worker obtained in the third party liability lawsuit.

The relationship between the worker’s compensation claim and the third-party liability lawsuit can be very complex, and the amount of reimbursement to the employer can vary from state to state.  Having a skilled personal injury attorney can help you maximize your recovery from the at-fault party and minimize the amount which must be reimbursed to satisfy the employer’s lien on any settlement can make a substantial different in your bottom line when both cases are over.

Therefore, it is strongly recommended that you hire an experienced personal injury attorney if you are hurt on the job and suffer injuries that were caused in part by someone other than your employer or  fellow employee.

Rodney Tucker, personal injury attorney who manages the Hausmann-McNally Indianapolis office, recently represented a woman who fell and was injured at her workplace. Her employer had hired contractors to repair their sidewalks and handicap ramp, but the plywood they laid down in front of the building was not secure.

The woman slipped on the plywood as she was trying to enter the building, resulting in painful hand and wrist injuries that required several surgeries. The injuries were painful and also diminished her ability to do her job.

While her workers’ comp eventually came through with a settlement of $45,000, Tucker felt that the property owner (and their insurance company) was also responsible for not overseeing the outside work. He was able to obtain an additional $50,000 for the woman from the companies that insured the property owner and the construction crew.

“It is not that we are looking out to ‘get’ people,” Tucker maintains. “But the law clearly places responsibility on people who own property to take reasonable precautions to ensure customers and workers are safe. In this case, the property owner and construction company were negligent and rightly had to pay the injured party.”

Many people believe that Workers’ Comp is the absolute end of the story when someone is injured at work, but the attorneys at Hausmann-McNally have often discovered other parties that bore responsibility for the injury and pursued a case against them on their client’s behalf. (See lawyers’ explanation below.)

Slip-and-fall injuries are an area where Hausmann-McNally personal injury attorneys have years of experience. If you have had such an injury, do not hesitate to call for a consultation that will help you decide if you wish to pursue a case against a negligent property or business owner. Call us at 1-800-227-6699 to make an appointment. We are willing to come to you at your home, in the hospital, your office or any location that is convenient for you.

Experienced personal injury attorneys are very creative people when it comes to helping accident victims receive compensation for their losses and injuries. The good ones don’t take “no” for an answer. They are bird dogs when it comes to finding sources to help pay for their clients’ injuries and losses.

By pursuing all aspects of a case that was racking up huge medical bills for a five-year-old girl’s family, Indiana Attorney Rod Tucker managed to help them recover financially from a serious automobile accident and, after two years of legal proceedings, come out with a structured settlement that will yield an expected payout of $1.49 million.

Rod Tucker is a seasoned attorney who manages the Indianapolis office for Hausmann-McNally, S.C., a personal injury law firm.

In June 2008, the girl was riding in the back seat and her father was in the front seat as her uncle drove on a rural Indiana road. Their car was going through a four-way intersection where three of the corners were open fields and the fourth was the site of a house with fencing, trees and shrubs. As they went into the intersection, their car was rammed by a car from the right. Both cars flew into a field. The girl’s father was injured, but it was apparent that his daughter was critically injured. Her head and leg injuries were so severe that she was airlifted to Riley Hospital for Children in Indianapolis. At the hospital, doctors induced a coma and kept her “asleep” for 55 days while they did what they could to heal her brain and legs. Treatment included risky brain surgery and numerous other therapies. Although he was injured himself, her father never left his daughter’s side in those 55 days.

Tucker said it at first appeared that there was not going to be enough insurance money to cover the expensive treatment which had already cost over a half million dollars. The insurance on the cars involved in the accident amounted to $170,000. In the interest of his clients, Rod Tucker set to work to find and sue the parties that shared responsibility.

Tucker investigated the site and found that the stop sign was located 20 feet back from the corner and that the county had never ordered the property owners to maintain a clear line of sight for motorists at the intersection. Tucker asked, and Clinton County agreed in mediation, to pay $300,000 because of the poor design and maintenance of that rural intersection.

In mediation proceedings in December 2010, Tucker asked for and received $350,000 from the homeowners’ insurance because, by creating their privacy landscape, the home owners were responsible for obstructing the visibility at the intersection.

In order to maximize the benefit to his client, Tucker further convinced the hospital that treated the girl to significantly reduce the family’s medical bills so that the there would be some money left to help with her care into the future.

After being presented a case that seemed to have insufficient insurance, Tucker got five parties to share the expenses for the injuries and loss suffered by that little girl. After a two-years of legal proceedings, she will receive an estimated $1.49 million in payments over the course of the next 45 years.

Tucker, who teaches several law classes at nearby universities, tells his personal injury law students, “the easy cases are when there are lots of injuries and lots of money.” The hard ones, he says, “are those situations where there are severe injuries, a lot of potential for compensation, but insufficient insurance and assets and it appears that nobody wants to pay.” This was one of those cases. Early on, the insufficient insurance seemed to sentence the family to bankruptcy or a life of paying off huge medical bills. The services of a skilled and dedicated attorney helped shift the picture to a rosier one for the girl and her family.

The little girl, now seven, is still receiving physical therapy for her leg injuries.  The brace on her right leg may be part of her life for a long time. Doctors continue to monitor her for delayed symptoms related to the brain injuries. Nonetheless, her family is grateful to have her with them. And grateful that the medical bills have not bankrupted them. The settlement achieved by Hausmann-McNally helps ensure their daughter a brighter future than was originally thought possible.

The attorneys at Hausmann-McNally know that one of the foundations of the firm’s success is that they work relentlessly to ferret out the ways to get compensation for their clients.

Effective management of the legal case and subsequent negotiations with the medical providers mean that, for this client, there will likely be over $1.4 million for her to use for her college education or other things that will assure a secure future.

There is never a totally happy ending to a story that begins with a tragic accident, but in these unfortunate circumstances, it illustrates many facets of the services provided by personal injury attorneys.