Personal Injury Law Journal

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.

If you have been injured at work, your medical treatment is handled by your employer’s workers’ compensation carrier. You may need extensive medical treatment and miss time from work. Ideally you receive all of the treatment you need and are paid for any lost time. Sounds simple, but for most people, there will be many hurdles along the way.
   
It’s not as easy as obtaining a referral and moving right along with your medical treatment. In New Jersey, your employer, through its workers’ compensation carrier, has the right to choose all of the doctors who will treat you for your injuries. This means the insurance carrier controls your treatment from the start.   

So, should you hire an attorney? The short answer is yes.

Here is why. You will need an advocate in the process. In most situations, your employer, the adjuster or the nurse case manager assigned to your file are not advocating for you no matter what they tell you. It is in the insurance carrier’s interest to spend as little money as possible, which conflicts directly with your need for medical treatment and out of work benefits. While it is the adjuster’s job to control costs, this means there is a person with little or no medical training attempting to make medical decisions about your case.

Additionally, if there is a Nurse Case Manager assigned to your file, all too often, the Nurse is serving the interests of the insurance carrier. While I have encountered some excellent Nurse Case Managers who advocate for my clients and make sure they receive the treatment they need, this is the exception and not the rule.  

Here is an example of a situation that comes up frequently. You go to see your doctor, he or she recommends a treatment plan consisting of an MRI and surgical consultation and takes you out of work, you leave the office with a copy of the doctor’s notes and everything seems okay. Immediately after you leave, the nurse case manager tracks down the doctor to ask if you really need the MRI study at this point, as it seems a little early, and wouldn’t it be better to try some more physical therapy. Then the adjuster calls the doctor to ask whether you could perform certain tasks even with your injury. Now, even though it seemed like you had a treatment plan and an out of work note from the authorized doctor, your treatment plan changed and you were returned to work all while you were not even in the examining room.  This doesn’t happen once in a while, it happens all too often.     

I tell my clients to advocate strongly for themselves while in the doctor’s exam room, as this is their chance to explain to explain physical complaints and problems to the doctor. Outside the doctor’s office, let us handle the rest. Hiring an attorney in a workers’ compensation claim is not simply about obtaining a settlement at the end of your case. Your lawyer should counsel and assist you at all stages of the claim whether it’s making sure you are paid while out of work, obtaining medical treatment and diagnostic testing, or dealing with issues with your employer or co-workers when you return to work. When you have a workers’ compensation claim, chances are this is your first time dealing with anything like this. I am involved in all phases of a workers’ compensation claim and see the issues my clients face on a daily basis.   

So, yes you need an attorney, but how do you choose one? At Stark & Stark, we have six attorneys in our workers’ compensation department and four of us are Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as Workers’ Compensation law attorneys. A recommendation from a friend or a colleague is always a good start, but you want to make sure you choose an attorney with the experience and knowledge base to assist you at all stages of your claim. I am Certified by the Supreme Court of New Jersey as a Workers’ Compensation law attorney and have represented hundreds of clients who have been hurt on the job. I see every day how these claims impact people’s lives and in the event that you have been injured at work, I strongly recommend you consult with us.

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.

It’s been awhile since Social Security recipients received an increase to their monthly benefits. The Social Security Administration announced that monthly benefits will increase by 3.6%. Prior to this increase, there hadn’t been a cost-of-living adjustment (COLAE) in two years. People who are dependent on every single dollar that comes in need yearly increases in their Social Security benefits.

While this represents a small increase in monthly benefits, it is especially important if you are collecting Social Security Disability (SSD) benefits. The disabled have often lost important years of earning ability due to injuries or a chronic condition. The fact that you could not work as long as someone who retires at 65, means that you were unable to reach your highest earning potential, and therefore receive lower monthly benefits because of that earnings loss.    

While a 3.6% increase may not seem like much in the short term, here’s why yearly increases are so important:  If your monthly benefit is $1,000 in 2009 and you received a COLA of 3.6% in 2010 and 2011, your monthly rate would now be $,1,111 per month starting in January 2012; instead that same benefit is now only $1,036 per month beginning in January 2012. Over time, these small increases will pay off.   

If there had been an increase in the past two years, not only would your current benefits be higher, but you would have received more money during those two years as well. It is important to ensure these much needed Cost of Living adjustments continue.   

How can you ensure that you receive an increase each year? I strongly recommend that you write your congressman to say thank you and at the same time provide a reminder about just how important these cost of living increases are. It may seem like a fruitless endeavor, but reminding your congressman how important each and every one of these increases is can help ensure the COLA increases continue each year. We’ve all heard stories of one or two letters to a congressman are sometimes the only reason that a congressperson takes up a particular cause.   How does your congressman know how important this is unless he or she hears from constituents that rely on these checks every month?   

I represent many clients who have become totally disabled, either as a result of a work related injury or a chronic illness. I see on a regular basis just how important each dollar is. Please contact me if you have questions about whether Social Security Disability is right for you. 

This may fall under the category of “Tell me something I didn’t already know”, but a British study has shown that firefighters exposed to dust and debris at Ground Zero are at an increased risk of developing cancer. The reason this is big news, is that all of the studies before this did not show an increased risk. The study, “Early assessment of cancer outcomes in New York City firefighters after the 9/11 attacks: an observational cohort study”, was published in the British journal, The Lancet.   

While many studies point out that 10 years is not long enough to see a statistical difference in cancer rates, as many cancers have a longer manifestation period, this is the first step in recognizing the possibility that these heroes put themselves at an increased risk to save others.  This was headline news in the New York Times, in which the September 1, 2011 article, “Study Suggests Higher Cancer Risk for 9/11 Firefighters” stated: “A new study says firefighters who toiled in the wreckage of the World Trade Center in 2001 were 19% more likely to develop cancer than those that were not there, the strongest evidence to date of a possible link between work at ground zero and cancer.”

Exposure to dust, debris and toxins is not limited to the World Trade Center site; firefighters and first responders know firsthand of these risks. The problem is that other incidents and exposures are not as well documented as those of 9/11. This is why it is extremely important to keep a journal of any significant fires, chemical spills, explosions or other incidents in which you may have been exposed to harmful substances.    

If you develop cancer as a result of something you were exposed to at work, you are entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. To prove this, you’ll need to be able to show that you were exposed to harmful substances and that the exposure contributed to your cancer. This is why it’s very important to keep your own exposure journal, as employers will definitely not do this for you. If you, or someone you know, is suffering from cancer as a result of work-related exposures, please contact me to set up a free consultation here in my firm’s Lawrenceville, New Jersey office in order to discuss your case in more detail.

Do you spend a lot of the day sitting at your desk?  A recent Appellate Division decision, Renner v. AT&T, held that James Renner can receive weekly dependency benefits as a result of the fact that his wife, Cathleen, died of a pulmonary embolism due to the sedentary nature of her work.   

The Court noted that when Cathleen Renner worked from home, she would sit for long hours at a time to meet various deadlines imposed by her employer, AT&T.  The Court found that the level of inactivity involved with this prolonged sitting caused stasis of the blood resulting in the formation of a blood clot, as opposed to one of Cathleen’s other risk factors. Cathleen weighed over 300 lbs. and AT&T wanted to blame her death on her weight and other risk factors.   The autopsy report indicated the blood clot was fresh, meaning that something caused it within the timeframe Cathleen was working leading up to her death.

The insurance company’s own doctor admitted “it would certainly be less likely” for Cathleen to suffer a pulmonary embolism had she not been working that day.

The question for the appellate division to consider was whether the lack of movement at work was more severe than the level of inactivity in Cathleen’s daily life outside work, and whether the work activity caused the pulmonary embolism in a material way.  

The Court held that the inactivity Cathleen experienced was more severe than the level of inactivity outside of work.  There was substantial credible evidence in the record that Cathleen was fairly active outside of work, both around the house and caring for her children.    

The Court held that the sedentary work condition was the cause of the clot to a material degree.   Just because a person is overweight, doesn’t mean he or she is not entitled to the same rights and protections as anyone else.    It would be like saying that because a firefighter smokes he should be denied benefits for any breathing problems he develops from exposure to smoke and chemicals over a career.   

The reaction section to the article about the case on the Star Ledger’s website, NJ.com, entitled “Court rules husband of Edison AT&T worker who died from blood clot entitled to workers’ compensation,” features many comments expressing outrage that an overweight person is entitled to any benefits.   Significant medical evidence exists showing that sitting for an extended period of time can lead to this type of clot.  It is tempting to blame the cause of Cathleen’s death on her weight, but the scientific evidence says otherwise and supports the Court’s findings.   The Dependency benefits awarded by the Court are designed to compensate a spouse for the loss of a significant level of financial support.   This was a 25 year employee, wife and mother who died from a work related condition.  The insurance company’s own doctor admitted that Cathleen probably would not have died but for the prolonged inactivity directly caused by her work.   An important lesson to take from this is to remain active throughout the day by standing up and moving around your office periodically.

If you have developed an injury or medical condition that you feel is work related, please call us for a free consultation. We have experienced trial attorneys able to handle the complex legal issues that can arise in a workers’ compensation case.