Was Your Workplace Injury Sparked By Something Else?
Workers compensation is a complex, but helpful system that can guide you back to a productive life after injury, but what if the injury has deeper history than your workplace incident? If you were wearing all of the proper safety equipment and following safety protocol properly, what happens if your legs simply gave out at a dangerous time because of an old injury? Before suggesting the hypothesis with your employer or the workers compensation insurance officials, consider a few parts of your past to discuss with your lawyer in confidence.
Who Was Responsible For The Previous Injury?
If you've been involved in a car accident, seriously injured in an altercation or involved in any kind of injuring incident because of someone else, they may be liable for your future problems in very specific situations. If you can prove that your workplace injury was caused by these past incidents, you may need to seek compensation from those past groups or individuals.
The issue with such techniques is that you risk moving responsibility away from your employer or workers compensation. There's no easy way to tell if workers compensation would allow you to continue drawing payments and medical assistance if there's any question that your injury had nothing to do with the workplace.
In truth, the problem could have been because of your injury and workplace conditions at the same time, but such risks need to be discussed with an attorney on your side first. From there, you can work on figuring out if you have a viable path towards personal injury compensation or if it would be better to wait until you're sure of the workers compensation situation.
Is There Another Compensation System?
If you were a government worker, there are compensation systems that could help you in the event of a persistent injury. Although every organization is different, the Department of Veterans Affairs is a good example.
With Veterans Affairs (VA), military veterans are entitled to compensation for conditions that are related to military service--a category called service-connected conditions. The problem is that you'll need decisive proof showing that you were injured in the military both on paperwork and in the form of medical evidence, followed by proof that you're currently suffering from the problem.
If you've been denied benefits because your problem doesn't seem to be an issue at the moment int he VA's opinion, this workplace incident might be the perfect piece of supporting evidence. You'll still need to make sure that the workplace or workers compensation insurance system won't be avoiding liability with your suggestion, but if they're able to cooperate, you'll have official witnesses of your problem with both your workplace and the government-affiliated workers compensation system.
Speak with a workers compensation attorney, like Lovett Schefrin Harnett, to discuss your compensation options.