Personal Injury Law Journal

In a another blog post, I explained that you have 90 days to report a work injury in New Jersey.   What happens when your employer has a different policy?   Employers are allowed to create their own internal deadlines for reporting injuries.   Often employers will require reporting on the job injuries within 24 or 48 hours.   Does this mean your employer can permanently deny your workers’ compensation claim?  No.

However, if you take too long to report a claim, your employer or its insurance carrier will very likely deny your claim.   This means you’ll have an uphill battle to receive workers’ compensation benefits.   

An employer can require you to report an injury within a certain amount of time just like it can require you to arrive to work on time every day.    If you are consistently late, your employer will discipline or terminate you.   If an employer policy regarding accident reporting only applies internally, you are still protected by the workers’ compensation statute when it comes to your worker’s compensation benefits.    

Under New Jersey Law, you can receive workers’ compensation benefits as long as you report the injury within 90 days.   It is very important to understand this difference.  The workers’ compensation statute does NOT protect you from discipline for violating your employer’s policy.   

For instance, an employer can require all accidents to be reported the same day or within 24 hours.   These policies are permissible, and if you do not follow them you could be subject to reprimand or further discipline, including termination, from your employer.  Even though this is different than the workers’ compensation requirements under the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation statute, it is allowed because it doesn’t actually impact your right to workers’ compensation benefits.  

What if your employer requires that all accidents are reported within 24 hour?    If you injure yourself at work on a Friday and wait to report it because you want to see how your injury feels over the weekend, then your employer can discipline you for failing to report the injury within 24 hours.  You could receive a write up or possibly be terminated for failing to follow your employer’s policy.   

However, your employer cannot deny you workers’ compensation benefits if you report an accident within 90 days due to the worker’s compensation statute.   A specific injury is one that you can pinpoint the time and place of when you were injured.   This is different than a repetitive stress injury that occurs over a period of time from performing the same strenuous activities over and over at work.   This does NOT mean your employer or it’s workers’ compensation carrier won’t deny your claim.  

Employers enact their own internal reporting requirements for several reasons.   The quicker the accident is reported, the sooner they can investigate the claim.    Employers are looking for other causes to an injury, and the longer you take to report an injury, the more likely your employer will look to show that it is not work related.

As I’ve said before, if you’re hurt at work, report it when it happens.   You will not do yourself any favors by failing to report an on the job injury.   

James Creegan is a Shareholder in Stark & Stark's Lawrenceville, New Jersey office concentrating his practice in Workers' Compensation law. For questions, or to schedule a free consultaiton with Mr. Creegan, please contact him here.

Do you have to report a work accident immediately after it happens in New Jersey?  Technically, no – however, the longer you wait to report the incident, the more likely the claim will be denied.

Even if you don’t require immediate medical treatment, report any accidents and injuries that occur at work to your supervisor.   It’s never a good idea to take a wait and see approach.   If, for example, you have a lifting injury on a Friday, but decide to wait and see if the pain goes away over the weekend, by the time you return to work on Monday the insurance carrier can claim the injury occurred at home over the weekend.  Failing to report an on the job injury can be disastrous.   You cannot receive treatment for a work related injury through your private health insurance, so if the workers’ compensation carrier denies your claim because you waited to report it, you will have difficulty obtaining medical treatment.

I recommend that you obtain a written incident report and make sure it includes the name of the person you reported the accident to.    Once you report the accident, you have two (2) years to file a formal workers’ compensation claim from either the date of the accident or the last date of workers’ compensation benefits paid by your employer, whichever is later.   Reporting the accident properly will buy you a lot of time to see if an injury goes away or not.   

If you seek emergency room treatment after hours as a result of an on the job injury, make sure to give an accurate description as to how you were hurt.   Emergency room records can be very helpful in proving that an injury is work related, however, if the records say you were injured at home or there was ‘no specific trauma’, this raises a red flag to the carrier and eventually the Judge.   

While the New Jersey Workers’ Compensation statute allows 14 days to report an accident, and in some cases up to 90 days, your employer can have policies that result in reprimands or discipline if you fail to report an accident on time.     This doesn’t mean that treatment will be denied in the long run, but you should be aware of specific policies that your employer has with regards to incident reporting.    

If you require assistance obtaining treatment or would like to discuss a potential workers’ compensation claim, please contact me with any questions or call to schedule a free consultation. 

James Creegan is a Shareholder in Stark & Stark's Lawrenceville, New Jersey office concentrating his practice in Workers' Compensation law. For questions, or to schedule a free consultaiton with Mr. Creegan, please contact him here.

In a prior post I discussed noise exposure at work and the problems that can result. 

The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communications Disorders (NIDCD), a department of the National Institutes on Health (NIH), states on its website: “when we are exposed to harmful noise—sounds that are too loud or loud sounds that last a long time—sensitive structures in our inner ear can be damaged, causing noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL).  These sensitive structures, called hair cells, are small sensory cells that convert sound energy into electrical signals that travel to the brain. Once damaged, our hair cells cannot grow back.”  Examples of conditions that can lead to an occupational hearing loss include industrial noises, sirens, and engine noise.   These types of conditions cover a broad spectrum of jobs and industries, from First Responders and Assembly line workers to Restaurant employees.  

As the information provided by the NIDCD indicates, hearing loss is permanent, so removal from the noise source will not improve the condition, but just makes sure it does not become worse due to ongoing noise exposure.   While many safety measures have been developed, such as changing the placement of a siren on vehicles so as to cause less exposure, much of the damage has already been done before the safety measures are implemented.

If you’ve developed hearing loss at work in New Jersey, you should consider filing a workers’ compensation claim as you may be entitled to benefits.   I’ll discuss the specific benefits available in a New Jersey claim in my next post.

James Creegan is a Shareholder in Stark & Stark's Lawrenceville, New Jersey office concentrating his practice in Workers' Compensation law. For questions, or to schedule a free consultaiton with Mr. Creegan, please contact him here.

The term ‘repetitive stress injury’ covers a wide variety of conditions. A Repetitive stress or strain injury happens when too much stress is placed on a given body part and can result in pain, swelling, muscle strains and tissue damage. If your job involves performing the same task over and over, whether its data entry work, loading and unloading delivery trucks each day, stockings shelves or operating heavy equipment, you are at risk for a repetitive stress injury.

Are repetitive stress injuries real?   Worker’s compensation insurance companies certainly don’t want you to think so. I’ve had multiple workers’ compensation cases in which Insurance carriers have unsuccessfully denied that a repetitive stress injury was caused by work. In other cases, the carrier claimed that only the most extreme activities, such as operating a jack hammer eight hours a day or constantly slamming a button with the palm of your hand all day, could cause an injury. When a person performs the same activity over and over, it can lead to chronic conditions such as Carpal Tunnel Syndrome, tears of tendons and ligaments, inflammatory conditions such as arthritis or Chronic Regional Pain Syndrome.  This is the opinion set forth by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as well as respected medical institutions such from the National Institute of Health (NIH) and the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons.

Think of a pitcher in Major League Baseball. A pitcher trains for years just to be able to perform the same throwing motion over and over. The career length of a pitcher depends on how long his shoulder and arm will hold up, specifically due to the repetitive throwing motion. It is now common for younger pitchers to have limits to the number of pitches they throw in a game and the total innings they can throw in a season.

Steven Strasburg, the pitching phenom for the Washington Nationals, probably won’t pitch much longer than August this year due to an innings limit. The team is worried about overloading his arm and shoulder and shortening his career. (http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1151334-washington-nationals-will-stephen-strasburg-innings-limit-cost-a-playoff-spot ) The Yankees most recently did this with Joba Chamberlain. Why are major league teams doing this, it’s not because they don’t care about ticket sales this year – in fact, they really do, teams are concerned with prolonging a career to insure ticket sales and success for years to come rather than a few games at the end of one season.  

Can you imagine if this happened at your job? If for instance, UPS shut workers down after 9 months to prolong their careers or a data entry employee being told not to type after a certain number of keystrokes in a given day – businesses won’t do this because it is not profitable, it’s unproductive and would be akin to admitting the repetitive nature of the work causes injuries.   

Whether a job is considered light duty or heavy duty is not the determining factor in whether you are at risk for a repetitive stress injury, it is the specific nature of the activity.  What usually differs between jobs is the type of injury. It is more common for a desk worker to develop carpal tunnel syndrome, the restriction of the carpal canal in the wrists, thereby pushing on the nerves, as opposed to a back injury or rotator cuff tear. While a worker engaged in heavy duty labor, such as mixing concrete or loading and unloading a delivery truck may be more susceptible to a chronic rotator cuff tear or disc herniation in the neck and back. An electrician who works with his hands all day could develop carpal tunnel syndrome while an office worker who constantly reaches overhead for files could develop neck or shoulder problems.  

The main thing to be aware of is that performing the same activity day in and day out can eventually cause serious physical problems. Because these injuries usually do not connect to one specific accident or injury, it can be hard for a worker to prove an insurance carrier should accept responsibility. Preventive measures such as proper ergonomics and exercise to strengthen affected body parts are very important, but these will not always help. If you have developed a repetitive stress injury, you should call me to discuss your specific situation or come in for a free consultation. 

James Creegan is a Shareholder in Stark & Stark's Lawrenceville, New Jersey office concentrating his practice in Workers' Compensation law. For questions, or to schedule a free consultaiton with Mr. Creegan, please contact him at: jcreegan@stark-stark.com.

Missing time from work can be costly. If you miss time due to an injury that occurs while performing your role as a volunteer firefighter or rescue squad worker, you will receive the maximum weekly benefit rate available to injured workers in New Jersey. The workers’ compensation statute provides these benefits to all volunteer fire, first aid or rescue squad workers. Public employers aren’t always so willing to provide these benefits to their volunteers.    

Normally, out of work benefits are based on your average weekly wage. So if you are injured at work and earn $700, your temporary disability rate would normally be $490 per week. In 2012, if you are injured while in the performance of your volunteer duties, you will receive $810.00 per week.

You might think a municipality, county or state agency would protect its volunteers, unfortunately this is not always the case. The simple reason is Money. Public employers are increasingly attempting to cut costs, and weekly benefits are an easy target. Our firm has successfully represented clients in which the municipality claims the volunteer was not in the line of duty when injured and not entitled to the full rate. Municipal employers have also been known to just base the weekly rate on a volunteer’s earnings from his or her actual job. This often results in a significantly reduced weekly rate.   

If you’ve been injured while serving in a volunteer capacity, you need to know your rights. State statue calls for volunteers “doing public fire duty” and “doing public first aid or rescue duty” to receive the maximum benefits available under the law. Public employers need to cut costs wherever they can, and injured volunteers are often an easy target. The activities covered are not limited to injuries suffered responding to a fire, accident or emergency. Construction work on a firehouse, repair work on vehicles and apparatus, participation in search and rescue task force, exhibitions, fund raising and parades are some of the examples in which Volunteers are entitled to this benefit.   

The statute also covers volunteers performing work related to bioterrorism, volunteers working for the Department of agriculture and emergency management volunteers and many other public volunteers.   

Volunteers perform high risk work, which means the injuries can be severe. The worse the injury, the higher the likelihood you will need to miss time from work. At Stark & Stark, our job is to make sure you receive the maximum benefits you are entitled to.

James Creegan is a Shareholder in Stark & Stark's Lawrenceville, New Jersey office concentrating his practice in Workers' Compensation law. For questions, or to schedule a free consultaiton with Mr. Creegan, please contact him at: jcreegan@stark-stark.com.