In this video, personal injury lawyer John Kelly explains how you can determine the value of your workers compensation case.
Kelly Law Team
1 E Washington St.
Suite 500
Phoenix, AZ 85004
602-283-4122
https://www.jkphoenixpersonalinjuryattorney.com
Transcript:
Hello, this is John Kelly from the Kelly Law Team. I wanna just talk to you about how much you may get from your Workers Compensation claim. This video is about anyone that's injured, how much they may be receiving if they have an injury on the job. In Arizona, just like most states, they're gonna have statutes that apply that will tell you how much you get if you're injured on the job. There's very strict rules, kind of, that we'll go through, but I wanna make sure I give you some pointers to kinda help you along the path here. First of all, if you're injured on the job, it's a no fault system, which means, it doesn't matter if it was your fault that you got injured or someone else's, you're gonna have the compensation that's given through the statute, so that's the good news. If you've been injured on the job, you're gonna be able to make a claim. Understand that even if you are injured on the job, you're gonna be able to make your claim. This is your sole remedy, which means you are the beneficiary of Workers Comp, but you may not be able to make other types of claims, meaning, you know, suing your employer in other regard or someone else that was on the job that may have injured you. There are some ways that, that could happen, if a third party outside of your work had injured you, you might have a personal injury claim at that point, but if you're on the job, working your job and you get injured by yourself or someone else that you're working with, you're typically, gonna have a Workers Comp claim. Some tips for starting your claim because you wanna make sure you get off on the right path, so that you're not making any mistakes that'll hurt you down the line. First, you wanna report your injury right away to your employer and it's a good idea to do that in writing. That will give you a record that you let your employer know right away that are injured. If they fail to take action at that point, you have a record to show that you had made them aware of the injury and they were then on the clock for taking action to help you. Your second thing that you wanna do and you don't wanna necessarily rely on your employer for this, is report this to your states Industrial Commission. And every state will have an Industrial Commission, you can find it online, just, if you're in Arizona, it would be Arizona State Industrial Commission. You could Google if you're in Tennessee, Tennessee Industrial Commission. There'll be forms on there to open a Workers Comp claim, so that should help you out in getting the process started. In Arizona, the website is azica.gov and right on there, they have a form and every state will be the same. Your third tip is to go see your doctor, don't wait for your employer to send you to a doctor. You know that you're gonna have doctors that will be provided, that won't be out of pocket expenses for you, but if you don't get to your initial diagnosis and your employer is not taking action and not filling out the right paperwork, not getting you to a Workers Comp associated doctor, there can be problems if you have a gap in treatment or if you don't get diagnosed right away and it can really hurt your claim long term, especially if you have some sort of disability that was related to the accident. You wanna get in to a doctor and get a diagnosis right away. So, let your employer know, go to the website, get to a doctor. Regarding the compensation that you'll get, what benefits will you receive, that's gonna be all under the statutes. So, how much is your claim worth? You will get one medical benefits fully subsidized, two, you could get disability benefits, temporary disability benefits and three, you could get permanent disability benefits. With medical benefits, that is, if you can get back to work, you're not disabled, you will have compensation for your doctors appointments, whatever it costs to get there, any diagnosis, any treatment until you reach your maximum medical improvement and that's kinda something that your doctors will have to determine. You can after that sometimes get some extra supportive care, but these things are in place for you to get to doctors, to get better until your maximum medical improvement. Secondly, you can get temporary disability benefits if you're not able to get back to work and you get wage replacement based on your income. So you're gonna have to be able to show how much you make. Generally, for instance, in Arizona you get 66 and two-thirds percent of your average monthly wage as your benefit for temporary disability and there's some caps in there, in Arizona it's 4500 per month, and this in non-taxable income.