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Workers' Compensation
Charlotte, NC - Personal Injury Attorney
Most North Carolina businesses with three or more employees are required by law to provide workers' compensation for their employees. Workers' compensation is governed at the state level and each state has laws that regulate workers' compensation for that particular state. In North Carolina, work injuries come under the jurisdiction of the North Carolina Workers' Compensation Act, which is overseen by a legal body called the North Carolina Industrial Commission.
Pursuing a Workers' Compensation Claim
Workers' Compensation Law protects employers from being sued directly for on-the-job injury, and therefore, legal actions for workers' compensation claims are filed against the insurance company providing the coverage. Workers' compensation coverage pays for an employee's medical bills and lost wages that are incurred due to work injury or occupational disease. An employee may also receive vocational rehabilitation training under workers' compensation if he or she is unable to perform the duties of the job as a result of the work related injury or disease.
When wrongful death occurs at the workplace, the family may receive workers' compensation benefits to cover medical expenses resulting from the injury, up to $3,500 for funeral expenses and up to 400 weeks of workers' compensation benefits. The amount for weekly compensation is two-thirds of the average weekly wage that the decedent was earning prior to death.
Legal Help
The Law Offices of Paul L. Whitfield & Associates assists injured workers and their families when insurance companies are delaying compensation or denying claims and also to ensure they receive the amount of compensation they deserve. Obtaining legal advice or representation through arbitration or litigation may become necessary to protect your rights. Many disputes can be effectively resolved through negotiated settlement, especially when the insurance company knows that your lawyer will not hesitate to take the case to trial. Our law firm has a positive reputation among local judges and insurance company attorneys and representatives who deal with workers' compensation issues. We have extensive experience, are knowledgeable in workers' compensation and employment law and are dedicated to seeing that you receive the maximum compensation entitled under North Carolina law.
We offer a free consultation with a personal injury attorney to discuss your workers' compensation issues and can assist you in determining whether legal action would benefit you. Please call our office or email to arrange an appointment.
Workers' compensation cases must be reported to the job supervisor. Workers' compensation insurance companies require the injured worker to be sent to a doctor of the insurance company's choice. You may ask for a second opinion, but do not go to your personal physician without permission because the insurance company will decline to pay for the visit.
Workers' compensation never was designed to pay workers' expenses in full, but rather was designed for political reasons:
- To provide medical care for an injured worker;
- To keep the injured person's family from starving; (During the 19th-c. Industrial Revolution, employees died from lack of medical care and their families starved.)
- To provide a small payment for permanent injury, except in cases of catastrophic injury.
However, about 15 years ago most carriers stopped paying large lump sums for catastrophic injury cases such as total disability. Insurance companies are betting that as an injured person you will die before you collect the total amount of disability benefits. People collect periodic monthly payments but commonly die earlier than the life expectancy tables predict. It's a simple bet that the insurance company usually wins.
Our law firm has a client who suffered a head injury, but is close to beating the workers' comp odds. The client has continued to receive periodic benefits for the past fifteen years. Several times the insurance company has offered to settle for what would be one-third of the full value my client has received. Each time, however, my client has refused the offer. The total of his periodic payments is approaching what he might have been paid as a lump sum for total disability fifteen years ago.
