Should You Sue For Your Workplace Injury?

Workplace injuries are unfortunately quite common. In most cases, a simple workers' comp claim filed with the help of a workers compensation lawyer is sufficient to meet your needs. However, in other cases, a personal injury lawsuit might be necessary. To help you decide if a lawsuit is right for you, consider the following:

Personal Injury Lawsuits and Workers' Comp Claims Are Incompatible

You cannot have both, so you will need to decide which is right for you. If you go with workers' comp, you will need to sign an agreement that prevents you from suing. Conversely, if you elect to file a lawsuit against your company, then you will be unable to file for workers' comp. If you try to do both, you could end up facing serious legal ramifications.

A workers' comp claim is more reliable and is a simpler process overall. All you need to do is notify your company and fill out some forms. You will then be told if your claim was accepted or denied. Even if it was denied, you can still appeal the decision and try to get some compensation.

To contrast, a lawsuit can award you much more money. Even if you end up settling out of court, you can still go home with all of your medical bills and lost wages covered. However, in the event that you do lose, you might not be able to go back to work at your company at all.

How can a workplace injury lead to a personal injury lawsuit?

While injuries can happen at work often, not every injury will allow you to file a lawsuit. In many cases, there needs to be some clear negligence on the part of your employer. For instance, if they told you to work in a certain area without notifying you of any dangers, and then proceeded to add toxic chemicals to that area (knowing that you were there), then you could sue them for any injuries that resulted.

In other words, you will need to prove that your company created an unsafe situation for you and didn't properly notify you about it. You also need to prove that you were directly injured due to the negligence of your company, which means that you can't really sue if you almost got injured. This is further compounded by the fact that a significant portion of your damages will come from medical bills, which aren't really going to be a factor if you didn't even get injured in the first place.