re: Workers comp injury question (closing the case)

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And if you don't have an attorney talking to you, then you are crazy.

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tap the brakes holmes. You can always go get an attorney. An educated individual can usually negotiate a better settlement with a carrier than what they ACTUALLY get once an attorney takes their huge cut. We are talking about STATUTORY coverage's here.

Now, I agree and pointed out early in the thread that this could revert back to employers liability.


Keep in mind that YOU can sue the employer under the EL policy. The case would be centered around damages for care and loss of service. Tell the court she can't do that "thing" with her leg anymore that made you fall in love This section of the policy is generally the loss of consortium area. But the point is if you two were used to taking long walks, jogging together, etc., and now that is not possible, this section of the policy is there to respond to those claims for damages.


Back to Workers Comp

An Alabama leg, by schedule is something like $44,000 if i recall correctly.

For scheduled injuries (a leg qualifies), it is 2/3 of AWW x Percentage of disability for the number of weeks for which compensation is due per schedule, with a maximum of $220 per week.

So the MAX WC payable would be $44,000 regardless for the Permanent Partial Disability.

lets say she makes 100K.
AWW would be $1,923.
2/3 of that would be about $1,270
$1,270 * .05 = $63.50
$63.50 * 200 weeks of Perm Partial = $12,700

If she makes half that, well half it pretty much.

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An educated individual can usually negotiate a better settlement with a carrier

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Wait... I'm lost.
Where are we again?
And where do we find the educated people?

I said that an attorney will add zero value to a work comp claim (actually, he/she would detract from that value).

But a litigious settlement means that you have to be prepared to go to court.
I'm not telling anyone to get an attorney. But they absolutely should allow an attorney to make his/her sales pitch to show the value added by putting real meat behind a legitimate liability lawsuit.

I don't like attorneys. I see bad attorneys everyday tell people that they have no case when all they are saying that it's not worth the attorney's time to get involved, yet the plaintiff has legitimate claims to tens of thousands of dollars.

If there are legitimate long term repercussions resulting from the negligence or direct decisions of the company, you are going to have to remove onesself from the work comp aspect and go directly at the employer from a liability perspective. That means defining damages (and I don't want people to trump up damages) and determining if the employer can satisfy those damages without going to court.

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Just curious how they equate the loss of any activities to how much she makes. I mean, whether she makes $20K or $100K that's really irrelevant to her loss of activities away from work.

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the calculation was on the Workers Comp side. Those numbers are pretty easy to determine a range for.


The suit YOU could bring would be decided by a judge or jury on the Employers Liability side. This is a number that is determined in the court system and you must prove negligence. So if the employer was negligent and your spouse was injured, the WC policy has parameters for what is compensable for her damages. YOU on the other hand can sue her employer under EL for the loss YOU sustained because of her injury.

Again, the best way to think about this is if she were paralyzed, WC will cover her earnings, medical, etc. But what about the fact that you and your wife can no longer have a normal (no such thing if married) sexual relationship? This is where you can sue the employer under EL for the consequential damages sustained by you due to her work related incident.

In my personal opinion a 5% impairment is not going to be a billion bucks, but I do not know your situation.

best of luck

You should just keep the medical portion open. Which means you won't receive any money, but atleast that will be covered. I was hurt almost 10 yrs ago. Had a L2 burst fracture in my back, among many other things that were broken. I got nothing other than the medical bills paid. It sucks but that's the workers comp system. The only thing that it pays is 2/3 of your loss of wages x's 10 years. There is no payment for partial disability, pain and suffering, or future pains.