Tom McCutcheon – Attorney at Law
Last week Joel wrote an article about workers’ compensation and what happens when injuries are not reported in accordance with the law and the injury happens on the job, BlueCross BlueShield will not pay the bills.
Let me explain why this happens and how to prevent it. Then I will tell you what my law firm does to solve these problems.
First, most people do not realize that because workers’ compensation adjusters are completely immune from suit, they can be difficult and tricky to deal with. There is nothing that you can legally do to them even if they tell you things that are not true. They can and will delay weekly benefit checks, they will terminate benefit checks without warning, they will claim overpayment, but you never see an underpayment. The reason that they can do these things is because they cannot be sued for it.
You must report your on-the-job injury to your supervisor. If there is any question about whether or not they remember being told, we write a letter (within 90 days) and put the employer on notice in writing. We always file suit. All workers’ compensation cases have to be approved by the court and we do not believe it is beneficial to subject our clients to adjusters who are not under the supervision of the court and are not officers of the court and subject to discipline as an attorney is. Defense lawyers in workers’ compensation cases work hard to show other causes or that the injured worker is capable of doing more than they claim, but at the end of the day no good attorney wants to lose his credibility with the judge.
About the worst action that people will do when they are hurt and need help is they will not claim an on-the-job injury at a doctor’s office. When a person puts in writing that there was some other cause or time for the injury other than the actual facts of an on-the-job injury, it creates a problem that is difficult for us to solve.
Report your injury, be consistent with how the accident happened when you tell the doctor about it and when you fill out the information sheet in the doctor’s office. Come see us, we won’t charge you a dime unless we can help you. If we can, we will tell you and you can make the decision to wait and see how it goes or hire us, but either way you will leave with information that you did not have. We appreciate all of our clients and anyone who wants to ask us about an on-the-job injury is welcome to do so.
Buckle up and drive safely.
McCutcheon & Hamner, P.C.
2210 Helton Drive
Florence, Alabama 35630
Telephone: 256-764-0112
Facsimile: 256-349-2529
