Workers' Compensation Lawyers in Dallas

Dallas Workers’ Compensation Lawyer Michael Grossman Discusses What to do if You’ve Been Injured on the Job

If you have been injured, or a loved one has been killed while working for an employer who carried workers’ compensation insurance, then you will likely need the assistance of workers compensation lawyers in Dallas to secure the compensation that you deserve.

Michael Grossman and the lawyers at Grossman Law Offices have spent the past 20 years litigating personal injury and wrongful death cases, and we know how to deal with negligent employers and stingy insurance companies. We can help you survive this time of stress and confusion and seek damages from those who have caused your injury or loss. Whether or not your employer purchased workmen’s compensation insurance will have a major affect on how your claim is handled.

No matter the nature of employment from dangerous jobs like construction to relatively safe desk-jockey work, on-the-job accidents can happen in a variety of ways – from the common and mundane like slips and falls and muscle strains from lifting to much to the more rare and dangerous car wrecks and explosions. No matter what the nature, work-related accidents can cause tremendous havoc for the injured or killed worker and his or her loved ones. If you have suffered a personal injury or a family member has been killed due to an employer’s negligence, then the workers compensation lawyers in Dallas at Grossman Law Offices can help you. Just because your employer carries workers’ compensation insurance doesn’t mean that you are going to receive adequate compensation for the injuries you’ve sustained. In many cases, the insurance company and the employer will try to devalue or deny your claim, and you need an experienced attorney protecting your rights. We want to inform you of the legal options you have and the obstacles you will face, so that you can make the best decisions to attain the equitable restitution you need to recover from the harm done by your injuries or the loss of your family member.

Determining Whether or not Your Employer is Covered by Workmen’s Compensation Insurance

Unlike most states, Texas does not require employers to purchase workers’ compensation insurance. Employers who do purchase workers’ comp coverage are known as subscribers, and those who don’t are referred to as non-subscribers. Granted, most employers choose to subscribe in order to receive the benefits such coverage affords, but many others do not. The legal options for pursuing compensation from subscribers and non-subscribers is completely different, so an injured worker or the family of a wrongfully killed worker must be able to truthfully ascertain an employer’s workers’ compensation status in order to know which path to pursue.

Many employers feign having coverage initially to avoid a lawsuit, so it can be challenging to discover whether or not they actually are. Our lawyers have seen this type of deception countless times in our experience handling work-related injury and wrongful death cases. As soon as we’re hired, we will begin investigating to discover the true nature of an employer’s coverage no matter what that employer has told the injured worker or his or her family. Regardless of the employer’s workers’ comp status, the workers compensation lawyers in Dallas at Grossman Law Offices can help you pursue compensation for your injuries or your loss.

Workers’ Compensation Benefits

The main incentive employers have for subscribing to workers’ comp insurance is that it provides protection against lawsuits from workers who are injured or killed on the job. No injured worker can file a lawsuit against a subscribing employer, but that doesn’t mean the injured employee or his or her grieving family has no means of receiving compensation – it just means that restitution must be pursued through filing a claim with the insurance provider instead of a lawsuit against the negligent employer. If you were injured while working for a negligent subscriber employer, then you will need to file a workers’ compensation claim through the proper channels. BUT, that doesn’t mean the insurance company will agree to compensate you fairly for the medical bills, lost salary and pain and suffering you have incurred. Often times, however, someone else besides the employer has committed some form of negligence that has results in your injuries or your loved one’s death, and the workers compensation lawyers in Dallas at Grossman Law Offices can bring lawsuits against the negligent third parties to offset the shortcomings of the compensation package offered by the insurer. Moreover, if the insurer is not negotiating with you in good faith, we can threaten a lawsuit against them to compel them to do so. Since we’ve been handling these cases for 20 years, we know how to recognize negligent third parties, and we also know there is an exception to the protection from lawsuits afforded subscribing employers.

Possible Exceptions to Filing Lawsuits When the Employer is a Subscriber

If the family of a wrongfully killed employee can prove a subscribing employer committed gross negligence, then the loved ones can file a wrongful death lawsuit. Generally speaking, the difference between standard negligence and gross negligence is a matter of degree. Standard negligence is a lone error or temporary lapse in judgment or focus, but gross negligence is careless disregard for the safety of others. For example, consider a construction worker who accidentally knocks a brick off the top of a building, killing another worker. This worker has merely committed standard negligence. However, if the same worker entertains him or herself and his or her co-workers by occasionally throwing bricks off the top of the building, then that’s likely gross negligence. In the first instance, nobody could have foreseen the accident, but in the second the worker should have been stopped from his or her practice of tossing bricks off the building in order to maintain safety. The accident could have been predicted and avoided, and gross negligence has likely been committed. However, meeting the standard of proof for gross negligence is much harder than for standard negligence. Our lawyers have experience building airtight cases to prove gross negligence in wrongful death cases. If your family has lost a loved one due to the gross negligence of a subscribing employer, then we can help you serve justice and secure the compensation you deserve.

In other cases, the negligence of a third party may have caused the accident that resulted in your job-related injuries or your loved one’s wrongful death. If this is the case, you can file a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit against this negligent third party. For example, if you are injured at work or your loved one is killed due to a design error in faulty machinery, then the manufacturer is liable and susceptible to a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit. This option often allows injured workers or the families of the wrongfully killed obtain more compensation than they would have by merely filing a claim a subscribing employer’s insurance carrier.

Dealing with Non-Subscribers

In order to obtain compensation for your injuries or your loved one’s death from a non-subscribing employer, you will need to fie a personal injury or wrongful death lawsuit. This is nothing like dealing with a subscribing employer. You can avoid the long battle through bureaucracy to obtain compensation and stand a much better chance of securing the equitable value of your compensation. Since workers’ compensation laws are designed to encourage employers to subscribe by punishing them for not doing so, generally speaking more damages can be secured through a lawsuit or the threat of a lawsuit than through an insurance claim. If your employer is a non-subscriber, then he or she has already demonstrated the unwillingness to part with their money to pay for workers’ comp insurance, and they are going to put even more of an effort expending a wide variety of tactics – legally, and possibly illegally – to avoid paying you the compensation you deserve. If they can deny your claim, or convince you to accept an inequitable settlement, then they can save their company a huge amount of money. The workers compensations lawyers in Dallas at Grossman Law Offices have learned all of the under-handed tactics of non-subscribing attorneys over the decades we’ve been handling lawsuits involving work-related injuries, and we know how to combat them. If you’ve been injured by the negligence of a non-subscribing employer, then we can put this experience to work for you.

While the burden of proof for establishing lies with you, the plaintiff, you need only prove standard negligence against a non-subscriber to secure compensation for medical expenses, lost salary, pain and suffering and possibly even diminished earning capacity in cases involving long-term debilities. Still, proving standard of negligence can be intricate and can easily confuse people without any legal experience or even some inexperienced lawyers. Our attorneys not only how to prove negligence, but we’ve also mastered the ability to make the jury accept our proof.

Possible Obstacles Presented by Non-Subscribing Employers

In order to convince employers to subscribe, the Texas Workers’ Compensation Act of 1993 allows non-subscribing employers only one defense in court against a work injury case – the sole proximate cause defense. Only an experienced personal injury and wrongful death attorney will be able to defend you against accusations of the sole proximate cause defense and prove the negligence of the non-subscribing employer. You need protection to ensure the defendant cannot weasel out of accountability through a technicality.

Proving Sole Proximate Cause in an On-the-Job Injury or Wrongful Death

In order to prove sole proximate cause and avoid liability, non-subscribing employers must be able to establish that victim was 100 percent responsible for his or her injuries with his or own negligence. Thus, to demonstrate this, the defendant will often attack the reputation of the injured employee, and this can be particularly hard to stomach in the case of a wrongful death since the defendants will attempt to besmirch of he reputation of the deceased.

Some non-subscribing employers carry supplemental and limited liability insurance that can be worth millions of dollars. With such large amounts of money on the lines, insurance adjusters will attempt to deny claims or reduce the amount of settlements, and they will be backed by aggressive defense lawyers who only respond to the threat of attorneys with strong track records of success handling such cases. Our workers compensation lawyers in Dallas have won cases against every major insurance company in the country, and we’ve developed a reputation for success. An experienced attorney is your best bet for securing the compensation you deserve.

Establishing an Employer-Employee Relationship

While the sole proximate cause is the only way for a non-subscribing employer to shirk responsibility for injuries or wrongful deaths after they occur, many non-subscribing employers try to utilize a legal loophole to avoid liability for accidents before they happen. Texas law only requires employers to provide a safe work place for their employees, so many employers, especially in the treacherous construction industry, will hire their workers as contractors – employers owe no duty of safety for contractors or temporary laborers who are expected to maintain their own safe working conditions. However, just because an employer claims that his or her workers are contractors doesn’t mean that’s the way the law in the state of Texas sees them. The law has strict guidelines for what constitutes an employer-employee relationship, and our lawyers have learned how to prove any of the standards of establishing such a relationship. For instance:

• The employer withheld social security or taxes from the worker’s paycheck.
• The employer expected the worker to adhere to a specific work schedule.
• The employer oversaw the employee’s work as he or she was doing it and not just after it was finished.
• The employer supplied the necessary tools to complete the job.
• The worker was paid a salary or hourly wage and not on a job-by-job basis.
• The employee was hired for an indefinite period of time and not just to finish a specific job.
• The employer requires the worker to do something or sign a document limiting the worker’s rights such as taking a drug test or acknowledging receipt of an employee handbook.

An employer might have called you or your loved one a contractor on the date you or your family member was hired, but our attorneys can still prove an employee-employer relationship if any of these above conditions exist. Having the workers compensation lawyers in Dallas at Grossman Law Offices on your side can keep non-subscribing employers from skirting their responsibility to you for the injuries or the loss of a loved one they have caused you.

OSHA Can’t Help You

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration was created to help provide federally mandated safety to the workplaces of America, but there is seldom anything it can to help individual Americans who are injured or killed in the workplace. Due to time, budget and manpower restrictions, OSHA is only a reactive agency that investigates accidents after they happen and not a proactive agency that prevents accidents or allots for assistance to those who have already been injured or killed. OSHA only visits a work site after an accident happens and generates a general report to help prevent future incidents from occurring. These reports are broad in scope and rarely offer any evidence that can be used to assist the insurance claim or lawsuit of the injured or wrongfully killed party. The OSHA report will not place blame or help you pursue restitution, but it will only suggest preventive measures and document what the employer is doing to avoid further accidents. Only an experienced workers compensation lawyer in Dallas can help you seek the compensation you deserve.

If You’ve Been Hurt or You’ve Lost a Loved One in an On-the-Job Accident, Then Contact Grossman Law Offices

Most importantly, if you have been injured or a family member has been killed in a work-related accident, then do not sign away your right to sue in exchange for a settlement from the employer. They wish to take advantage of your initial shock and need for closure by getting you to accept a settlement that does not adequately compensate you for your injuries or your loss. They want to quickly and cost-effectively resolve your claim. If they are willing to pay a small amount up front, that only means they know they’re liable for a much larger amount. If you sign a release of liability, then there is nothing any lawyer can do to get you the compensation you deserve. In fact, you should not even be conversing with your employer or his or her insurance carrier about your accident or your loved one’s wrongful death without the protection of an attorney.

The good news is that you can hire a workers compensation lawyer in Dallas who can protect your legal rights, get the restitution you deserve and make the parties who caused your injuries or your loved one’s death pay for what they have done to you. Call us today for a free consultation at 1-855-326-0000 (toll free), and we can answer any questions you have and tell you what we can do for you. By hiring a lawyer as soon as you can, you allow your representation to begin investigating to find the evidence you need before it is gone – evidence fades quickly after any on-the-job accident. Call us now, and we can immediately begin looking for witnesses and finding the evidence that will prove your case. We will discuss the specific details and circumstances of your case and tell you what your legal options are. Understanding workers compensation laws can be very difficult for people without any legal experience, but at Grossman Law Offices our lawyers have 20 years of experience at your disposal. Don’t go through this process alone.