Maison Law of Merced stands ready to help anyone injured by overexerting themselves while on the job. Workers’ compensation support helps victims hurt at work, but not every victim is treated fairly. Not everyone receives the same amount of support. We want to ensure that every victim has the resources to cover all medical bills and support their families.
Contact us today for a free consultation to learn more about your options that may go beyond standard workers’ comp benefits.
Do I Need a Lawyer After Suffering an Injury On The Job in Merced?
If you receive a serious injury at work and will miss more than a few days on the job, you may require the help of a lawyer to earn adequate support for recovery through workers’ compensation. A lawyer can often earn you more for a serious injury by representing your case to California’s Division of Workers’ Compensation than you could win by filing a claim yourself.
A lawyer also helps immensely with the investigation that results in powerful evidence to back your case. Employers can ask workers to put their bodies through more strain than they can safely take. However, proving how this injury has built up over days or weeks can require careful documentation. Your attorney works with your doctors to show the proof of how your injury developed.
A skilled Merced Workers’ Compensation Lawyer secures the evidence needed to hold employers accountable and to ensure you receive the maximum support available. Go over your options if you believe Workers’ Compensation won’t provide enough in compensation to pay all of your hospital expenses and your living expenses while you can’t work. Speak to a lawyer if your employer tries to blame you for your injury.
Consult with Maison Law if you are being threatened for reporting unsafe working conditions. You can also contact our lawyers if you’ve been unfairly denied benefits.
The guidebook provided by the California Department of Industrial Relations (DIR) explains a few other reasons you may want to trust your case to a lawyer.
Overexertion Injury Risks at Local Merced Workplaces
Employers benefit from an employee’s hard work, but so many companies deny their responsibility when employees go down with an injury caused by overexertion.
Workers on a farm might be asked to move heavy crates or bales that should really be a two-person job. They might be forced to use powerful tools that rattle the user’s body until an injury develops. Employees may be working on an assembly line, making the same bodily motion over and over again. These motions can create physical issues for workers when they don’t have proper breaks and the right safety equipment to reduce strain.
These types of risks can contribute to overexertion injuries for workers in industries like agriculture, manufacturing, and even office work.
- Carrying or lifting more weight than is safe
- Asked to make repetitive motions without breaks, leading to injury
- Asked to work to exhaustion, leaving the body more vulnerable to a breakdown
- Asked to work in extreme hot or cold temperatures, leading to an injury
- Knee injuries caused by lifting items that really should be lifted by a machine
- Asked to throw boxes or crates
- Asked to bend or twist in daily work duties
Overexertion Injuries Commonly Suffered at Work
These and other hazards can lead to carpal tunnel syndrome. They can lead to weakness and numbness in the very limbs workers need to complete their daily tasks. Muscles, ligaments, and tendons can be damaged. Back and neck injuries are common. A bone fracture might occur.
The National Safety Council (NSC) reports that overexertion and bodily reaction injuries and illnesses resulted in the most DART (Days Away from Work, Job Restriction, or Transfer) cases between 2021 and 2022. The NSC also found that sprains, strains, and tears led to the most overexertion-related work absence.
Maison Law’s Workers’ Comp Attorneys can take up your fight and ensure you receive absolutely everything you need to recover physically and financially after an injury. Your attorney will be aggressively negotiating for more support for you, while you are left free to focus on getting better.
Your lawyer can represent you if your case must be decided by Workers’ Comp administrators. We make sure they understand every hardship you’ve been through and those that may arise in the future. Your lawyer can also prepare a strong lawsuit if an employer was grossly negligent in allowing you to get hurt.
What Kind of Compensation Can I Get After a Merced Work Accident?
One benefit of having a skilled lawyer on your case is that you can focus on resting and healing, while letting your attorney handle the frustrating back-and-forth with Workers’ Comp.
Your lawyer files your claim and makes sure it contains a full list of your hardships and medical bills at the moment. It should also demonstrate the hardships and medical costs you may face in the future with a recurring injury.
The DIR Injured Worker’s Handbook goes over all the different types of support available through a claim. This is a look at some of the support victims could receive:
- Medical Care. Paid for by your employer’s Workers’ Comp insurance provider to help you recover from an injury or illness caused by work. This includes doctor visits and other treatment services, tests, medicines, equipment, and travel costs reasonably necessary to treat your injury.
- Temporary Disability Benefits. Payments if you lose wages because your injury prevents you from doing your usual job while recovering.
- Permanent Disability Benefits. Payments if you don’t recover completely and your injury causes a permanent loss of physical or mental function that a doctor can measure.
- Death Benefits. Payments to your spouse, children, or other dependents if you die from a job injury or illness.
- Supplemental Job Displacement Benefit. A voucher to help pay for retraining or skill enhancement if you are eligible to receive permanent disability benefits, your employer doesn’t offer you work, and you don’t return to work for your employer. This benefit is available for workers injured in 2004 or later. If your injury also occurred in 2013 or later and you received a Supplemental Job Displacement Benefit, you may also be eligible for an additional, one-time payment under the Return-to-Work Supplement Program.
Important Deadlines for a Workers’ Compensation Claim in Merced
You’ll first want to make sure your employer knows about your injury. Inform your employer or a manager immediately about any accident. If you wait longer than a month to alert your manager, it may allow your employer to refuse Workers’ Compensation assistance.
In cases dealing with overexertion, determining exactly when an injury occurs and how long it takes to develop into something serious can be difficult. The deadline may be extended in some cases, but it’s important for employees to report the first signs of recurring pain.
The second important deadline involves filing a claim (usually with the help of your employer) with California’s Division of Workers’ Compensation. You’ll usually have up to one year from the date of the accident to file a claim. In some cases, the one-year deadline counts down from the day the worker learns of an injury or illness. The deadline could be extended if the victim is under the age of 18.
Contact a Merced County Workers’ Compensation Lawyer
Employees who are hurt in the workplace should never be afraid to speak up. They’ve hurt themselves while sacrificing their physical wellbeing for their companies, and those companies must be there for them now that they are hurt.
Speak to Maison Law in a free consultation. We want to hear about what happened to you and then help you determine the best course of action for your family. We also want to make sure you earn the maximum in benefits for your family while you are down with an injury.
If you do need us to earn more for your claim, Maison Law’s Merced Overexertion Workers’ Compensation Lawyers work on a contingency basis. It means there are no upfront costs to hire us. We don’t get paid unless we win your case for you. Then our attorney’s fee comes out of the Workers’ Compensation support you receive.
