And private injury lawyers.
*****fund raiser for hockeynut*****
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And private injury lawyers.
Trish, you and Sam have been great in spearheading this. Having had the privilege of hanging out with, and diving with Jim many times I can say he's a really great guy and I hope he and his family recover 100% and become only stronger from this horrible accident.
I think it's also important to mention that Jim's close friends have arranged this benefit, Jim hasn't asked for our help, we want to aid his family during this very trying time.
I think it's also important to mention that Jim's close friends have arranged this benefit, Jim hasn't asked for our help, we want to aid his family during this very trying time.
Thank you for highlighting this point. Neither Jim nor his family put any of us up to this.
Many in the dive community who have met Jim, and dove with Jim, and those who only know Jim online wanted to help when they first heard about Jim's accident.
This was all Trish's idea and she deserves all the credit. Even when super storm Sandy turning Trish's world and neighborhood upside down, she was still able to step outside of her tragedy to help a friend. Trish is the real life hero here. Jim and all of us who know Trish are the fortunate ones!
It depends to a large degree on the specific state, and the employer's insurance company.
Worker's comp was originally developed early in the 20th century to ensure that injured workers could get fast, no fault payment for medical expenses, lost income, and disability compensation. It was considered to be their due for their sacrifice to the industries that made our country great - the same basic premise as veterans injured on active duty. That happened because prior to workers compensation legislation employers tended not to pay for the care of injured workers, and their attorneys and the courts used things like contributory negligence to deny any claims for medical expenses or compensation for disability.
The irony here of course, is that if you've ever had any experience with trying to make a worker comp claim, you've probably encountered:
1) a system of company doctors, minimizing the disability, or saying it was caused by a prior accident or prior employment, and/or
2) you've encountered an attorney who states it's your own fault not the company's, and/or
3) an attorney stating that the injury is related to another previous job, and is not the employer's responsibility, and/or
4) (my personal favorite) you encounter an insurance company that refuses to pay any of your medical expenses until you sign a waiver limiting your future claims against the company - knowing full well that the medical providers will be sending you to collections, destroying your credit rating and putting your entire family under ever increasing stress. They know time is on their side, so they continue to not pay the bills sent to them, and let them fall back on you.
As for lawsuits, it usually takes 7 to 10 years from accident to ultimate settlement and the settlements are usually a lot smaller than you deserve. By that point the mounting bills and lost income has pretty much destroyed your life, cost you your house, car, marriage, etc, so you end up accepting a settlement that is normally little more than the wages you've lost to date and any medical expenses you've incurred. Then of course any insurance companies involved will file suit and come after you in an effort to be repaid for any expenses they may have actually paid out to you.
Which is to say after 100 years of attorneys and back sliding precedents by the courts, workers comp is back to about where it was before there was workers comp.
So...unless the employer has a rather humane insurance carrier and he lives in a pretty liberal pro-worker state, workers comp and lawsuits won't do much to help Jim over the short term. Over the long term, my advice is get a good attorney, don't sign any waivers, don't settle and don't waive the employer's obligation to address future health issues and complications stemming from the injuries - they often have additional effects that come with age and the employer/insurer needs to cover those expenses related to your accident for the rest of your life if it's an issue.
OP
Thanks for the kind words Sam(and Chip)..............but dont need to take credit, Just want to help a friend out.
While that may be the case with small issues regarding worker's comp, it is NOT the issue with large claims like these. I was in the residential construction industry for almost two decades. In that time I was part of the process from the employer's perspective more than a few times. When a limb gets severed, someone gets crushed, someone gets paralyzed, the process is VERY swift. The ONLY fingers being pointed are in the direction of the owner of the company. There is never a question of fault, it's assumed it's the owners fault regardless of who the dumbass was. The ONLY time this MIGHT be in question is if the victim tests positive for drugs, and even that's not a guarantee.
Get a good lawyer. You'll have a check within 90 days to at least hold you over, and you'll have hundreds of thousands of dollars within a year. Trust me, I've been on the crap side of this a few times. It's the reason I carried bazillions in liability and NEVER operated illegally. In the construction industry, if something can go wrong it will.
I disagree, at least as a general rule in all states, based on years of working as a state funded vocational rehabilitation counselor providing services to worker comp clients (who can't get those same job retraining services from the worker comp carrier). The examples of delayed claims and stall tactics are legion, even in cases of paralysis, amputation, sever burns, etc. How would you explain, as just one example, a lineman who gets 2nd and third degree burns over 80% of his body, then has to fight for seven years before his medical bills get settled?
Not sure, NEVER encountered that. Maybe Florida is just better. When you arrive at the hospital for ANY injury the first thing the intake nurse says is "did this happen at work". At that point they know it's a worker's comp case and you won't be charged.
In Florida even if your employer did not have Worker's Comp coverage and you got injured on the job you are covered. Then the state throws the employer in jail, seizes all your employers assets and covers the claim. At least that's what happened to my brother. He was severely injured on the job. The employer had no workers comp. He spent nearly a year in the hospital, then several years in rehab. It never cost him a single cent.
Just to elaborate. When I was a framing contractor building houses in the early 90's, before Worker's Comp got really good, we had an accident at work. It wasn't my fault or the employees fault for sure. We had rented a crane and operator to set trusses on a roof. Later we hooked up to move a bunk of plywood (72 sheets of 1/2" CDX) which weighed about 2100lbs. We were using a 100 Ton Crane to move 200lb trusses and 2100lbs of plywood when a shackle snapped. The plywood fell and crushed my employee.
Now, personally, I think the Crane Operator's (and this was a huge company) liability should have covered EVERYTHING. After-all it was his faulty shackle that caused the injury. There was no fault of mine, no fault of my employee and no fault of my plywood. Hehe. But, Worker's Comp officers were on sight the very next day interviewing my 12 remaining employees. They had already interviewed me and the crane operator and the owners of the Crane Company. In the end it was about 3 week before my employee started getting his benefits for being out of work. Worker's Comp paid him (I believe) 68% of all his lost wages. The crane company ended up paying him about 300k for pain and suffering and the other 32% of my employees wages that WC didn't pay. But while my employee lost a paycheck for a few weeks, ultimately his out of pocket for this injury wound up being nothing.
Oh, and no suit was ever filed. The 300k+ was the offer the Crane Operator's insurance company proposed. My employee took it. I personally would have sought more, but that's just me. Because nearly 20 years later he's still affected by the injury in the way of back/bone/muscle aches.
Worker's Comp over here at least in the construction field has always been swift. This has just been one example. I can show you dozens, like when an employee shot himself in the leg with a nail gun, only to develop an infection, that would take his ability to walk normally, blah blah blah.
Anyway, your mileage may very. I don't know what state you're in. So I shouldn't try to speak for everyone.
In Florida even if your employer did not have Worker's Comp coverage and you got injured on the job you are covered. Then the state throws the employer in jail, seizes all your employers assets and covers the claim. At least that's what happened to my brother. He was severely injured on the job. The employer had no workers comp. He spent nearly a year in the hospital, then several years in rehab. It never cost him a single cent.
Just to elaborate. When I was a framing contractor building houses in the early 90's, before Worker's Comp got really good, we had an accident at work. It wasn't my fault or the employees fault for sure. We had rented a crane and operator to set trusses on a roof. Later we hooked up to move a bunk of plywood (72 sheets of 1/2" CDX) which weighed about 2100lbs. We were using a 100 Ton Crane to move 200lb trusses and 2100lbs of plywood when a shackle snapped. The plywood fell and crushed my employee.
Now, personally, I think the Crane Operator's (and this was a huge company) liability should have covered EVERYTHING. After-all it was his faulty shackle that caused the injury. There was no fault of mine, no fault of my employee and no fault of my plywood. Hehe. But, Worker's Comp officers were on sight the very next day interviewing my 12 remaining employees. They had already interviewed me and the crane operator and the owners of the Crane Company. In the end it was about 3 week before my employee started getting his benefits for being out of work. Worker's Comp paid him (I believe) 68% of all his lost wages. The crane company ended up paying him about 300k for pain and suffering and the other 32% of my employees wages that WC didn't pay. But while my employee lost a paycheck for a few weeks, ultimately his out of pocket for this injury wound up being nothing.
Oh, and no suit was ever filed. The 300k+ was the offer the Crane Operator's insurance company proposed. My employee took it. I personally would have sought more, but that's just me. Because nearly 20 years later he's still affected by the injury in the way of back/bone/muscle aches.
Worker's Comp over here at least in the construction field has always been swift. This has just been one example. I can show you dozens, like when an employee shot himself in the leg with a nail gun, only to develop an infection, that would take his ability to walk normally, blah blah blah.
Anyway, your mileage may very. I don't know what state you're in. So I shouldn't try to speak for everyone.
