Workers’ compensation cases are almost always more involved and complex than they first appear. You might think that after a slip and fall accident or any other kind of accident on the job, you’ll automatically be given time off work to recover and then awarded damages to pay for your medical bills, lost wages, and/or pain and suffering. Then, if the accident didn’t leave you unable to work, you will be able to get back to work and continue with your job and your life.
Unfortunately, though Baltimore workers’ compensation laws are fairly straightforward and easy to understand, this is usually not the case. For one thing, because workers’ comp cases fall under tort law, the burden of proof is placed on you, the victim, to prove that your employer acted negligently and that this negligence is what caused your accident and injury.
In addition to compensation for lost wages, your employer should be held responsible for ensuring that you are back up to speed when you return to work. Some companies will attempt to fight this and will not want to “waste” their resources on training an employee who has nominally already been trained. However, if your job requires you to maintain perishable skills that cannot be maintained without regular practice, failure to retrain you could result in another accident and/or poor performance.
Failure to Retrain as Negligence
In some cases, failure to retrain an employee who has either not grasped a concept or who has lost proficiency in one or more skills can lead to an on-the-job accident. In this type of case, the employer would be guilty of neglecting to fully train an employee and would therefore be liable for the accident.
When to Call a Workers’ Comp Attorney
In most cases, you will be dealing with your employer’s insurance company, and it is in their best interest to pay you as little in the way of damages as possible. To this end, they keep teams of attorneys on staff or on retainer to handle worker’s comp cases like yours. That’s why, no matter what else you do, if you are involved in an accident on the job, you really should call a qualified worker’s comp attorney as soon as possible. They can tell you what you need to do to help your case and gain the compensation you deserve.
Your attorney will not only walk you through how to best prove that negligence occurred, but they’ll also be able to assist you with answering other questions, as well. For example, what happens when you sustain a severe injury and must remain out of work for several weeks or months?
For help understanding how much retraining you are entitled to and what to do after an accident on the job, you’ll want to enlist the aid of an experienced workers’ comp attorney in Baltimore, MD. Call Ingerman & Horwitz today at 1-800-776-4529 for a free consultation.
