WHEN WORK TURNS DEADLY: WHY YOU SHOULD HIRE A WORKPLACE ACCIDENT LAWYER IN NEW YORK AFTER A GRUELING INJURY

Millions of New Yorkers wake up every morning, brew a cup of coffee, and off to work they march with hope against hope that they will still be alive at the end of the day. For too many an Empire State laborer, that plain hope is being translated into a nightmare from which there is no escape. But a workplace accident lawyer in New York can help.

Since workplace accidents injure almost 200,000 New York workers each year, and Workplace fatalities have fluctuated at around 250 each year for the last decade, the unfortunate truth is that it is now more hazardous to work in New York.

The numbers are stark: New York’s work injury rates are 25% higher than for the nation, and in New York City alone in 2023, 69 work-related fatalities took place. They are not numbers—real flesh-and-blood individuals whose lives were forever changed through preventable work tragedies.

If you suffered an on-the-job injury, chances are you are facing a mountain of medical expenses and can’t work, with no clue as to what your rights are.

While workers’ compensation seems to be your only recourse, in certain situations, it is not just your best course of action; you should think about seeking out a workplace accident lawyer, so you can protect your future and your family’s economic interests
future.

The deadliest works in New York:

● Building: The most fatal occupation.
New York City construction workers may get killed on the job. 482 New York City construction accidents and 7 New York City construction fatalities in 2024. More than 60% of all these fatalities occurred in Brooklyn and Manhattan.

The 2023 NYC construction fatality rate was 11.6 per 100,000 workers, nearing two times the nation’s 9.6 per 100,000 death rate.

Falls by themselves remain the single largest leading cause of all deaths on state construction sites, and 21% of statewide deaths in construction. Fall from scaffold, ladder, or roof on- or with- accident, they appear to develop disabling conditions such as traumatic brain injury, spine injury, and fracture.

● Warehouse worker crisis.
The New York warehousing industry has another killer trend. The incidence of work-related injury among warehousing workers rose half a point and doubled to 8.8 per 100 workers in 2022 from 3.6 per 100 workers in 2017.

It implies that every 11 of their medically treated injury occurs annually. The meteoric rise of online shopping has spawned a perfect storm of poisonous work cultures, whereby the workers have to attain phony levels of production at the expense of their safety.

● Outside construction and warehouses.
Occupational risks go much farther than these deadly industries. Automobile accidents, toxic chemical contact, and on-the-job violence all account for extremely high rates of New York workplace deaths.

Office workers contract repetitive strain injury, and hospital employees carry lethal germs.  There are dangers at every company that, unless addressed with care, are fatal.

Understanding the ramifications of workers’ comp.

Workers’ comps typically continue to pay only two-thirds of your average weekly wage (as limited by the state) and ordinary medical expenses.

It does not cover damages most valuable in the aftermath of a disabling injury: pain and suffering, recovery of wages in full, and loss of quality of life. More importantly, however, is that workers’ comp does involve procedures and timetables.

You must notify your employer of the injury within 30 days, and your claim must be submitted to the Workers’ Compensation Board within two years. Do something other than this, and you are out of luck permanently. A workplace accident injury lawyer in New York can help you through the process.

Red flags that call for legal action

● Your claim has been denied.
Insurance companies reject workers’ comp claims for various reasons. From under the Sun, the accident you were injured in occurred outside of and in the course and scope of employment to pre-existing conditions. You can appeal if your claim is rejected, but attempting to do so yourself puts you at a gigantic disadvantage. A workplace injury claim lawyer in New York will collect all your medical history that will support your claim and fight to overturn the denial.

● You are living with life-altering or lifetime injuries.
Your on-the-job accident has probably caused traumatic brain injury, spinal cord injury, severe burn, or amputation, which is more than a headache for you to deal with on your own. Such life-altering kinds of injuries have very positive probabilities of needing lifetime medical attention, ongoing rehabilitation, and lifelong adaptation in lifestyle. Your settlement figure today will determine your lifestyle for the next two decades.

● Third-party liability exists.
This is where most injured workers lose out on hefty compensation. Though you cannot sue your employer in most cases for work injuries, you can sue third parties for personal
injury. This may be:
● Manufacturers of equipment whose faulty products led to your injury.
● Owners of premises who failed to keep the premises safe.
● Contractors or subcontractors whose fault resulted in your accident.
● Drivers who were involved in work-related car accidents.
Third-party lawsuits can cover pain and suffering, wage replacement in full, and punitive damages—awards you can’t recover under workers’ compensation alone.

● You are being pressured to settle prematurely.
Insurance companies will try to get employees to settle in full at one time for a few dollars before they are even informed of the nature and extent of their injury. After you have settled your workers’ comp claim, you generally can’t reopen your case, even if you worsen.
A workplace injury claim lawyer in New York can counsel you on whether and when the settlement is really worth your case’s worth in the long run.

The hidden cost of work injury: Far exceeding medical expenses

● The physical consequences.
Occupational disease is a cascade of body disease, much more common than initial trauma. Back injury, an extremely common New York worker’s injury, can introduce chronic pain, limited motion, and a multi-doctor, multi-procedure gush of procedures into life.
Chemical disease can introduce respiratory disease, skin disease, and even occult cancer that will manifest in the years to come.
Traumatic brain injury caused by falling on the job or work trauma may change your forever, personality, intellectual capabilities, and personal relationships forever. These “silent” injuries are also too often not reported on workers’ compensation cases, but can ruin your earning potential and lifestyle.

● The financial ruin.
The cost in dollars of a disabling on-the-job accident is several times more than the up-front cost of medical treatment. 78% of all Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, and, as such, a loss of income for several weeks will ruin them.
Add to this loss of earning capacity, home modification, adaptive appliances, and lifetime care, and the cost of an on-the-job injury over a lifetime can be millions of dollars.

● Family and emotional damage.
Accidents in the workplace can injure workers and also family members. Children lose stability, wives and husbands become caregivers, and the injured worker always loses identity, suffers from depression, as well as anxiety. These losses, as real as they are, sad as they are, are recoverable under personal injury law, not workers’ compensation. How a workplace accident lawyer in New York represents your future

● Initial case review and protection.
You need an experienced workplace injury claim lawyer in New York who will personally work on your case to explore all means of recovery. Your third-party claim is not only your workers’ compensation case, but all your cases, doubling your recovery.
Time waits for no man—evidence disappears, witnesses’ memories disappear, and the
statute of limitations runs out.

● Thorough investigation and gathering of evidence.
Comp claims are not evidence-based on negligence, but personal injury claims are. Your car accident injury lawyer in New York will thoroughly scrutinize it, and it will involve:
○ Review of safety and OSHA record of violations.
○ Interview of expert professionals and witnesses.
○ Fault or maintenance of equipment review.
○ Safety procedure and training records review.
○ Interview of medical specialists regarding your long-term prognosis.
● Exact assessment of damages
The biggest thing your car accident injury lawyer in New York will do is provide you with a fair estimate of the overall value of your case. This will not only include immediate necessary medical bills and lost wages, but also:
○ Ongoing future medical bills due to your diagnosis.
○ Lost earning capacity in the event the injury prevents you from working in the career you previously had.
○ Pain and suffering for the physical and emotional injuries you have incurred.
○ Consortium damage for harm to your marriage with your partner.
○ Punitive damages are warranted under the circumstances because the defendant’s conduct was totally offensive.
Insurers have armies of lawyers and adjusters working full-time. You just can’t match resources and knowledge of the law with them if you are in a hospital bed recovering from an injury that altered your life.
A car accident injury lawyer in New York brings expertise to the management of a case like yours and familiarity with New York law to negotiating a fair award or, if required, taking your case to trial before a jury.

Why New York’s special legal culture calls for locally sophisticated sophistication

● Sophisticated labor laws.
New York further has the nation’s most robust worker protection legislation, and New York Labor Law Sections 240 and 241 provide additional construction worker protection.

The “scaffold laws” impose strict liability on building owners and general contractors in the event a person is injured by a fall between where he was working and a construction
worker.

● Some jurisdictions and processes.
New York’s workers’ compensation system surrounds most of the various agencies and procedures based on where you are employed. Based on where you are employed and where you reside, several Workers’ Compensation Board offices could be processing claims.
And if your claim falls under federal jurisdiction (such as maritime employment or federal employment), entirely different laws could be applicable.

● Statute of limitations maze.
New York also has varying statutes of limitations for various types of claims. Personal Injury claims typically must be made within three years, but governmental claims have very limited time frames.
Worker’s comp claims must be made within two years, and if your claim is a malpractice claim against a doctor or hospital, it has less time. Waiving time limitations is waiving your permanent right to an award.

The terrible price tag of doing it yourself

● Low awards.
Injured workers always get less than represented claimants, where car accident personal injury lawyers in New York are not involved. Insurers know that unrepresented claimants are more likely to accept low awards because they are forced
to settle with mounting medical expenses and lost income.

● Third-party claim missed opportunities.
Above all, employees who do not hire a car accident personal injury lawyer in New York also risk losing valuable third-party claims. Third-party claims can pay workers’ comp multiple times, but only at the cost of requiring the skill to discover and pursue them.

● Procedural errors.
The compensation and injury system is filled with technicalities, deadlines, and regulations that will catch the unwary. Blundering mistakes such as failing to give your employer proper notice, missing a deadline, or being treated unfairly will undermine your
whole claim.

Get help!
If you have been seriously hurt caused by a New York work accident, you must act quickly. Each day that lingers brings another day for evidence to deteriorate, witnesses to forget, and deadlines to pass.

Most importantly, the sooner yogeten good legal counsel, the sooner you can direct your time and energies where they are needed most—your recovery.

At Gehi and Associates, our workplace accident injury lawyer in New York, who handles your workplace accident case, will attend to the paperwork and formalities while you recover and get back to normal.

We will make sure that you get appropriate medical care, will battle your rightful cause, and defend your rights throughout. And the best part is that we often operate on a contingency fee, so you may not pay anything if you lose your case.

Insurance companies and antagonistic courtroom battles between you and the compensation you are entitled to. When work is deadly, professional legal advice isn’t a recommendation—it is critical to the guarantee of safety for your future and holding those liable accountable.

The recovery from a disastrous work accident is bumpy and lengthy, but you do not have to travel it by yourself. If you have Gehi and Associates by your side, you can recover while we battle for the justice and reward you are entitled to. Your future is yours today to create the best that it possibly can.
Connect with us today!

FAQs for a workplace accident lawyer in New York:

1. How is a workplace accident injury lawyer different from a workers’
compensation lawyer?
Only a case of workers’ comp and a case of third-party injury concern the workers’ compensation lawyer. On the other hand, workplace accident injury lawyers can collect more by bringing third-party liability claims. This can consist of pain and suffering damages, total wage loss, and punitive payments that you cannot collect through workers’
comp alone.
2. Can I sue my employer in New York if I am injured on the job?
Normally no. New York comp statute provides an exclusive remedy to your employer, i.e., you cannot sue your employer for a work-related injury. But you have the right to sue on a personal injury case if the employer acted willfully or wantonly to cause an injury to you, or if a third-party (i.e., machinery manufacturer or subcontractor) has caused your
accident.
3. How is the statute of limitations for work-related injuries in New York?
You have 30 days in which to notify your employer of the workplace injury and two years within which to file your workers’ compensation claim. You also have the general three-year statute of limitations due to injury for third-party personal injury suits. Time is considerably shorter for some actions against governmental departments. However, early consultation with a workplace accident injury lawyer in New York
is advisable.
4. Will my workers’ compensation be delayed if I have a workplace
accident injury lawyer in New York?
No, a workplace accident injury lawyer in New York who handles workplace injury will probably speed up the process and get you more money. These lawyers know how to prod your case in the right direction, get the necessary medical evidence, and get all the forms submitted promptly. They can usually speed up your benefits simultaneously while they pursue potential third-party
party claims.
5. What if my workers’ compensation claim is rejected?
You can appeal, although it is an exasperating process with very tight time frames. AN AA workplace accident injury lawyer in New York will help garner further medical records, secure affidavits for expert witnesses, and make strong arguments in attempting to have the denial reversed, and the benefits you are statutorily entitled to receive will be granted.
6. How much will it cost to hire a workplace accident injury lawyer in New
York?
Most workplace accident injury lawyers in New York handle cases for work-related injuries accident case charge a contingency fee, and you pay nothing if you lose, but only if you win in your case. Their fee is typically a percentage of your award or recovery, which your workplace accident injury lawyer in New York will have an interest in recovering as much money
as they can for you.
7. What type of damages can I recover, beyond workers’ compensation?
If you do have a third-party claim, you can recover for pain and suffering, full loss of wages, loss of consortium, and punitive damages—all of which you cannot recover under workers’ comp. Those damages will usually be several times greater than the value of workers’ comp alone.
8. Do I accept an early settlement offer from the insurance companies?
Never resolve the claim without a workplace accident injury lawyer in New York. Insurance companies would naturally attempt to scare injured workers into low, rapid settlements before they even know the extent of the injury. Settling means that in most instances, you can’t reopen your claim if you get worse or develop new symptoms.
9. What if I caused my workplace accident?
Workers’ compensation is no-fault, and you would be covered by benefits irrespective of your fault or anyone’s fault, being the reason for the accident or if no one was at fault. Comparative principles of New York’s negligence would apply in third-party personal injury cases, and your recovery would then be reduced by your fault, but you would recover even when partially at fault.

10. How can I be sure I have a third-party claim, beyond workers’
compensation?

Third-party claims are where it wasn’t your fellow worker or employer that injured you.
The standard examples are defective equipment, dangerous other parties’ properties, negligent contractors, or third-party auto accidents. A workplace accident injury lawyer in New York can spot these possibilities, which most injured workers cannot determine for themselves when handling the claims alone.