What Benefits Are Your Survivors Able to Recover?

workers-compensation-apply-when-a-worker-diesIn New Jersey, after a job-related injury, you can apply for disability and medical benefits under the state’s workers’ compensation system. If your injury keeps you from working, either temporarily or permanently, you’ll be able to pursue disability benefits, either for the time you are out of work, for a set period of time (if your injury is permanent), or even for the rest of your life, in certain situations. But what happens if you are killed in a workplace accident or die from an occupational disease?

Under New Jersey law, the surviving spouse and natural children who were in a worker’s household at the time of death qualify as dependents and are entitled to receive a death benefit after a worker is killed or dies because of a work-related cause. As a general rule, the benefits will be 70% of the worker’s average weekly wage (AWW) for the past 52 weeks. That benefit amount is divided among the dependents. Other relatives or dependents may also seek death benefits, but must prove actual dependency to the workers’ compensation board. A minor child will be considered a dependent until age 18, unless in college or physically/mentally disabled, when benefits may be available for a longer period of time.

In addition, the workers’ compensation insurance company or the employer must pay up to $3,500 in burial or funeral expenses when a worker dies from a job-related cause.

Contact Us

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured workers throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

We handle all workers’ compensation claims on a contingency basis. We won’t charge you attorney fees if we don’t recover compensation for your losses.

common-mistakes-when-filing-for-workers-compensation-part-twoIf you’ve been hurt at work and had to pursue workers’ compensation benefits, you know that the process can be long and difficult, even when it seems like you have an open and shut case. You don’t want to make some of the common mistakes people do, errors that can delay your receipt of benefits or even disqualify you. We’ve talked about some of the medical issues, such as failing to get a second opinion or failing to follow doctor’s orders. Here are some of the more fundamental mistakes that can jeopardize your right to benefits.

Waiting to Notify Your Employer

You should let your employer know of your injury as soon as possible. Remember, your employer and the workers’ compensation insurance company have a vested interest in paying as little as possible (or nothing, if they can get away with it) to settle your claim. The longer you wait, the greater the risk that your employer or the insurance company will make one or both of the following arguments:

  • Your injury wasn’t really that serious, or you would have notified your employer immediately
  • Your injury was caused by some intervening event (another accident, unrelated to work)

Waiting to File Your Workers’ Compensation Claim

There’s a time limit for filing a workers’ compensation claim. If you don’t submit your claim within the required period of time, you stand a good chance of losing any right to benefits.

Trusting that Your Employer Will Take Care of Everything for You

Don’t operate under the mistaken assumption that your employer will acknowledge your injury and help you get the benefits you need. By the same token, don’t try to handle the workers’ compensation claim on your own. Your employer and/or the insurance company will likely have your claim reviewed by legal counsel, and may actually employ attorneys to try to deny or diminish your claim. Hire an experienced lawyer as soon as possible to ensure that your rights are protected.

Contact Us

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured workers throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

We handle all workers’ compensation claims on a contingency basis. We won’t charge you attorney fees if we don’t recover compensation for your losses.

what-additional-benefits-are-available-in-a-new-jersey-workers-compensation-claimIn New Jersey, when you’ve been injured on the job, you have a right to collect benefits to compensate you for lost income. Once you’ve been unable to work for at least seven days because of your injury, you are eligible for as much as 70% of your gross weekly wage before your accident. If your claim isn’t challenged, your benefits will likely start within a couple weeks, and will be retroactive to the date of your injury.

You are entitled to other benefits when you file a workers’ compensation claim:

  • Payment of medical expenses—Under New Jersey law, if your workers’ compensation claim is approved, you are entitled to reimbursement for or payment of all reasonable and necessary medical treatment. As a general rule, you must obtain pre-authorization for medical care, except in the case of an emergency.
  • Job training or vocational rehab—If your injuries are permanent and will prevent you from returning to your previous occupation, you can obtain financial assistance to help you find a new job or get trained to do other work.
  • Mileage reimbursement—You’ll be required to stay under the care of a doctor and to schedule regular appointments. You can request reimbursement of mileage expenses.
  • Death benefits—If you die in a work-related accident, your surviving spouse and/or other dependents can receive payments at the same rate as if you had been permanently and totally disabled.
  • Funeral and burial expenses—The workers’ compensation laws also provide for payment of up to $3,500 to cover funeral and burial expenses when a worker is killed on the job.

Contact Us

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured people throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

work-related-injuries-part-twoAs we explained in an earlier blog, to qualify for workers’ compensation benefits in New Jersey, you must meet two requirements—you must have been injured, and that injury must have been sustained during the course of your employment. Clearly, if you are on the clock and performing any of the duties listed in your job description, you’ll likely qualify for workers’ compensation for any injuries suffered. But there are situations where there may be questions about whether your injury was work-related.

In an earlier blog, we looked at whether you can recover workers’ compensation benefits when you are hurt at company outing or because of your own wrongdoing. In this blog, we look at your eligibility if you suffer injury on a break or while traveling for your employer.

Injuries Incurred on a Break

Under labor laws, you are entitled to take regular breaks, including a lunch break. Can you collect workers’ compensation benefits if you slip and fall while punched out for lunch or a scheduled break? Does it matter if you leave the company grounds?

Generally speaking, if you suffer an injury on company property while on a lunch or other break, you will be able to recover workers’ compensation benefits. There are exceptions—if you were involved in some time of unauthorized or forbidden horseplay at the time, you may be disqualified. If, on the other hand, you leave the physical premises of your employer for lunch, you generally won’t be able to collect workers’ compensation benefits for injuries suffered at or on the way to or from the restaurant, unless you went to the specific destination to pick up food for your boss or at the request of a supervisor.

Injuries While Traveling

As a general rule, you don’t qualify for workers’ compensation benefits for injuries sustained on your commute to or from work, unless you took a detour to complete a task at the request of a supervisor (your boss asked you to pick up bagels or stop at the post office). If your job requires that you drive to see customers, or if you travel to conferences, workshops or seminars for work, you will generally be eligible for workers’ compensation benefits if you are hurt, unless the activity you were engaged in was wholly or primarily personal. For example, if you are hurt on the way to or from a meal, you are probably covered, but if you go to a night club while at a convention and hurt yourself on the dance floor, that probably won’t be covered.

Contact Taylor & Boguski

At Taylor & Boguski, we have more than 70 years of combined experience representing injured workers across New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, send us an e-mail or call us at 856-200-8989.

We handle all workers’ compensation claims on a contingency basis. You won’t pay any legal fees unless we get compensation for your losses.

work-related-injuries-part-oneIn New Jersey, as in other states, when you suffer an injury at work, you are entitled to pursue workers’ compensation benefits to cover lost wages, medical expenses and other costs. There are only two requirements to qualify for benefits—you must have been injured and your injury must have occurred during the course of your employment. In most instances, there is no dispute that you were injured at work. But there are circumstances where the rules may not be so clear. Here are a couple of those instances.

Injuries Incurred at a Company Event

Suppose your company sponsors an event—a golf outing or a picnic—and you slip and fall at the outing, sustaining injuries that prevent you from working. In most instances, whether attendance at the event was voluntary or mandatory, you’ll have the right to seek and recover workers’ compensation benefits for injuries you have suffered. There are exceptions, however, if your behavior was unreasonable. For example, if you become inebriated at a company event and get behind the wheel of a car, you may be precluded from recovering workers’ compensation benefits if you are involved in a car accident, unless you can show that the company provided the alcohol.

Injuries Caused by Your Own Wrongful Conduct

What if your injuries were caused, in part, by your own negligence or carelessness? Typically, that won’t prevent you from recovering workers’ compensation benefits, as workers’ compensation laws are “no fault” statutes, meaning benefits are available regardless of fault. However, if it can be shown that you intentionally injured yourself to collect benefits or recklessly disregarded company rules, your claim can be rejected.

Contact Us

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to people throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

We represent clients in workers’ compensation proceedings on a contingent fee basis. We won’t charge you attorney fees unless we recover compensation for your losses.

is-workers-compensation-your-only-remedy-for-a-work-related-injurySo you have been hurt on the job. In New Jersey, as in other states, you are entitled to seek workers’ compensation benefits for injuries sustained during the course of employment. The workers’ compensation laws were enacted to provide a benefit to both parties in the aftermath of a work-related injury. For the worker, there’s the opportunity to start receiving benefits within weeks of the injury, with benefits retroactive to the date of injury. You don’t have to incur the expense of a lawsuit and you won’t have to wait for compensation until the legal process is exhausted. As an employer, you don’t have to worry that a sympathetic jury will come back with a huge damage award. Payments are generally fixed under the workers’ compensation system.

But is that your exclusive remedy in the aftermath of a workplace injury? It depends.

The workers’ compensation laws are intended to compensate a worker for the negligence of an employer or a co-worker. If your injuries were caused entirely by the carelessness of your employer or a colleague, you must look only to the workers’ compensation system for reimbursement of any losses. However, if you can show that your injuries were caused, in whole or in part, by an unrelated third party, you can still pursue damages in a lawsuit against that third party. In fact, you can file a lawsuit simultaneously with a workers’ compensation claim.

So what does a third party claim look like? Some of the more common ones include:
• Injuries sustained in a motor vehicle accident caused by a third party
• Injuries suffered as a result of the malfunction or breakdown of tools, equipment or products manufactured or marketed by a third party
• Injuries caused by the negligence of someone on adjoining property

Contact Us

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to men and women throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

We handle all workers’ compensation claims on a contingency basis. There will be no attorney fees unless we recover damages for your losses.

man with knife

Though deaths on the job remained about the same nationwide in 2015, New Jersey unexpectedly saw an increase of nearly 10% in fatalities in the workplace during the same time period. Federal Bureau of Labor Statistics data indicated that 97 New Jersey residents died from work-related accidents, up from 87 a year earlier. Officials could not identify a single factor that contributed to the increase.

Here are some of the findings included in the BLS study:

  • Violent deaths nearly doubled, from 11 in 2014 to 18 in 2015
  • More than a third of the New Jersey deaths—37—were in motor vehicle accidents
  • Falls from heights accounted for 24 workplace fatalities in 2015
  • The construction industry experienced the largest number of deaths—22, and more than half of those (12) were of workers who fell from high elevations
  • The occupation that saw the highest number of deaths was motor vehicle operator, with 15. This was also true with respect to work-related deaths nationwide.
  • More than two-thirds of the workers who died across the country were Caucasian—that statistic was significantly lower in New Jersey, with only 54% of workplace fatalities involving white workers
  • Men are far more likely to die in the workplace than women—nationally, 98% of job-related deaths are of men. In New Jersey, 94% of workplace fatalities are men
  • There’s a lot less risk if you are self-employed—only 14% of deaths nationally were of people who worked for themselves
  • 40% of the deaths in New Jersey involved workers over the age of 55, as compared to 35% across the country.

Contact Us

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured people throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

leg-injured

When you’ve been injured on the job in New Jersey, you have a right to pursue workers’ compensation benefits. There’s a good chance, once your claim has been filed, that you’ll hear the terms “scheduled” and “non-scheduled” losses. If you’ve never been involved in a workers’ compensation claim before, you may be uncertain what those terms mean and how they might apply to your case.

Scheduled Losses

A scheduled loss derives its name from that fact that it’s a loss that is specifically listed on a state-approved “schedule” of the kind of injuries for which compensation is available. Furthermore, that schedule identifies a specific number of weeks of benefits for each type of injury. For example, an injury to your hand will allow you to recover for a certain number of weeks, but an injury to your knee or ankle may qualify you for a different number of weeks.

So-called “scheduled” losses typically involve appendages, including arms, legs, shoulders, hips, elbows, knees, wrists, ankles, fingers, toes, as well as ears and eyes. It important to understand, though, that scheduled loss payments are only available for what are perceived to be permanent injuries. If your injury is temporary, you will only be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits for the period during which your injury keeps you from working, or until you have reached what is known as “maximum medical improvement.” If your injury is deemed to be permanent and it’s to a body part that is listed on the schedule, the amount of weeks you would receive benefits is calculated by looking at the degree of your disability and your “scheduled” number of weeks. As an example, if your injury entitles you to 150 weeks, but the medical opinion is that you only have 30% loss of use with the foot—you’d be entitled to 45 weeks of compensation.

Non-Scheduled Losses

Non-scheduled losses involve injury to other parts of the body, including internal organs or your spinal cord. As with a scheduled loss, you will probably get a disability rating from the treating physician, who will estimate the degree of your disability. The number of weeks you’ll be able to recover benefits (at a rate of up to 70% of Average Weekly Wage) will be the percentage of your disability times 600—the maximum number of weeks you can recover benefits.

Contact Us

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to men and women throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

We handle all workers’ compensation claims on a contingency basis. There will be no attorney fees unless we recover damages for your losses.

Are There Death Benefits under New Jersey’s Workers’ Compensation Laws?

injured-worker

When you’ve been hurt on the job, you naturally expect that you’ll be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. But what happens when your loved one dies from injuries suffered at work, or from a work-related illness?

Under New Jersey law, when a person dies in a work-related accident or as the result of an occupational illness, certain individuals related to or dependent upon the decedent have the right to recover up to 70% of his or her average weekly wage (AWW) for the 52 weeks immediately prior to their death. For purposes of the law, the death will be treated the same as a permanent total disability, entitling beneficiaries to payments for up to 450 weeks. There are some statutory limits to the amount that can be paid.

Under the New Jersey workers’ compensation laws, qualified dependents automatically include the surviving spouse and any biological children who lived with the deceased at the time of death. Anyone else seeking to qualify as a dependent must prove actually dependency status (at the time of death) to the workers’ compensation judge. Furthermore, if a surviving spouse or natural child was not part of the deceased’s household at the time of death, that person must also provide evidence of dependency. The law considers a biological child a dependent until age 18, or until age 23, if the child remains in school. Offspring with physical or mental disabilities may qualify for additional benefits.

The law also requires that the workers’ compensation insurance company pay up to $3,500 in funeral and burial expenses for a work-related death. Those benefits are payable to whoever has legal responsibility to pay the funeral expenses, whether it’s an individual or the estate.

Contact Us

At Taylor & Boguski, we bring more than 70 years of combined legal experience to injured people throughout New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, contact our office online or call us at 856-200-8989.

when-is-an-injury-work-related-for-workers-compensation-purposes

One of the fundamental rules for eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits is that your injury must be “work-related,” either caused by or occurring on the job. With traumatic injuries, it’s often obvious whether or not the injury happened on the job. But other types of injuries may not be as clear cut. What about joint or tendon pain caused by repetitive stress or motion? What if you suffer a heart attack or a stroke, and you were under intense stress at work? What if you suffer a work-related injury that’s relatively minor, but it causes you to develop a more serious problem?

The bottom line—you need to convince the workers’ compensation judge that something about your work caused or contributed to your accident. Here are some examples:

  • Suppose you have a debilitating stroke, either while at work or during your off hours. How can you get workers’ compensation benefits for that? The first thing you’ll want to do is document the full extent of any stress you experienced at work. If you have co-workers who can testify to your stress level, that can help. In addition, you’ll want expert medical testimony linking your stress level to the likelihood of a stroke, or at least to an increase in your blood pressure.
  • Suppose you’re on the job and you get cut by a piece of metal. The wound may be minor and may not even prevent you from coming to work at all. But what if you seek medical treatment and have an allergic reaction to drugs the doctor prescribes, or what if you develop an infection because of the cut. These are known as "consequential injuries" and can be compensable in a workers’ compensation claim.

Contact Taylor & Boguski

At Taylor & Boguski, we have more than 70 years of combined experience representing injured workers across New Jersey. For a free initial consultation, send us an e-mail or call us at 856-200-8989.