Disability Law

Employee Gets Bad Information About Legitimate Job Injury

By Jodi Ginsberg

Although Georgia's workers' compensation system is supposed to foster an environment where legitimately injured workers can get needed treatment and then return to work, the reality is much different.   It has been my experience that workers' compensation practice is just about as adversarial as divorce practice.  Often justice and fair play take a back seat to "winning" and efforts by employers insurance companies to avoid paying benefits.

Case in point.  This week I received the following email from a young woman who works at a factory in north Georgia:

Where I work I have been told that carpel tunnel is not recognized as a workman's comp injury if I wasn't having problems with numbness before.  Is this correct?

The short answer is "no, this is not correct."  Repetitive motion injury (often resulting in a diagnosis of carpel tunnel syndrome) is a very common work injury, especially for factory workers performing manual labor with their hands.

Any employer who tells an employee that "carpel tunnel is not recognized as a workers' comp. injury" is either very misinformed or downright dishonest.

The point here - if you are injured on the job, you should not rely on your supervisor or the HR person at your job to advise you regarding your rights.  The employer (and its insurer) have a decided interest in avoiding claims.  And they know that if delay reporting an injury or if you do not report an injury accurately to your doctor they stand a better chance at minimizing your settlement or even convincing a judge that you did not really get hurt at work.

If you are injured on the job and you think that you may have a claim, call me or another experienced workers' compensation lawyer for an opinion.

Full post as published by Georgia Workers Compensation blog on August 01, 2009 (boomark / email).