North Fort Myers Workers Compensation Attorney

After experiencing an accident in Naples, the last thing you want is to have an attorney at hand that doesn't know how to represent you adequately. You want a reputable Naples law firm that will fearlessly fight to acquire maximum compensation on your behalf. That is precisely what Trial Pro, P.A. does. Our Naples lawyers hold a strong reputation for winning cases, and we do everything in our power to deliver the results you're expecting.

Trial Pro P.A. is proud to advocate for workers compensation victims all over the state of Florida, including our office in North Fort Myers. Our dedicated experienced personal injury attorneys handle a range of legal matters, from employment disputes to auto accidents claims. We can use our knowledge and legal skills to help you not only achieve a favorable outcome, but relieve the legal burden from your shoulders as well. Our entire team understands how challenging and confusing litigation can be, which is why we are here for you through every step of the process. Serving all areas of Florida including Orlando, Edgewood, Collier County, Saint Petersburg, Horizons West, Bloomingdale and more!

• Can you work while on workers compensation?
• Can you sue workers compensation for pain and suffering?
• Can you be fired for being injured on the job?
• Can The Internal Revenue Service take a workers compensation settlement?
• Can I get unemployment if I get hurt at work?
• Can I sue my employer for emotional distress?
• Do workers comp Insurance Companies Pay For Lost Wages?

Florida law requires most employers to buy workers' compensation insurance coverage. Under Florida workers compensation laws, employees are compensated for occupationally sustained injuries, despite fault. This insurance coverage makes companies immune from some injury suits by workers.

Are you searching for a Work Compensation Law Firm near you? If you are hurt, we recognize you may not be able to drop by our offices. Let us come to your place!

Trial Pro, P.A. works with Floridians in a variety of personal injury law matters. Our practice areas include all types of personal injuries; car collisions, motorcycle collisions, wrongful death cases, slip-and-fall accidents, eighteen-wheeler collisions, construction injuries and work comp accidents. With offices in Orlando, Tampa, Naples, Brevard County, Melbourne and Fort Myers. Trial Pro, P.A. delivers strategic guidance and counsel to people in areas like Fruitland Park, South Apopka, Deltona, Kendall, South Fort Myers, Pelican Bay and across Florida. Get in touch with our law firm for a free and confidential discussion of how we can help.

Workers' compensation in Florida is a legally required system of benefits that are accessible to most workers who are injured at work. It is a no-fault system, meaning that for the most part negligence in the cause of an accident is a non-issue. You could be entirely at fault or negligent in triggering an injury, moreover this does not exclude individuals from obtaining benefits. However your manager or colleague can be negligent in leading to the unfortunate incident, and this does not qualify you to even more benefits. Worker's Comp is claimed to be equally a shield and a sword as for providing for benefits. It is a "sword" in that your employer simply cannot defend against your claim by saying you were negligent in causing the injury. It is a "shield" that offers protection to Employers from having to pay employees a lot of the damages that are available to non-employees who are injured or hurt due to the unfortunate incident.

Need to file a Work Comp Claim? Talk with our Expert North Fort Myers Work Comp Attorneys Call As soon as possible for a consultation with an experienced attorney and go over your legal needs and concerns - 800-874-2577

This good example exposes the "sword and shield" factor of Work Comp. Let us's claim Evan is an extremely careless chef. He hardly pays attention to what he's doing. He's going out the back entrance at work, hands packed with trash, to throw in the dumpster. As he rushes down the well-lighted staircases, he trips and falls down cracking his upper arm. His manager comes to his aid, and notices that Evan as is usual was transporting way too much to be safe and his shoe laces were simply untied. You might expect that Evan may not have a case because his negligence induced the personal injury. But you would be not right.

North Fort Myers businesses and property owners are lawfully liable for taking care of their premises and must always keep it in a reasonably safe and secure condition and alert occupants of any dangerous conditions of which they are conscious or need to be aware.

Now let's alter the facts to some extent. Evan instead of being careless is quite careful. He always ties his no slip shoes in double knots, certainly never hurries down the stairs, and never transports more than he can. However his manager has been somewhat neglectful lately. The light fixture on the staircases burned out, and he knows that one of the steps is fractured and is a tripping risk. Then again he's too hectic to deal with that problem at the moment. As a result, Evan trips on the busted unlit stairway that his manager knew about, and yet failed to even try to tell Evan about. If you expect that Evan can now file a claim against his boss or Employer for negligence as a result of his boss's careless actions, you will also be mistaken. Careless Evan has the exact same rights as a seriously injured employee as vigilant Evan does. That may seem unjustifiable, but that is a consequence of fault of negligence being a non-issue in work comp.

Therefore let's analyze who is entitled to these particular benefits in FL. First of all, you need to be an employee. Independent contractors (or 1099 staff members) are not entitled to work comp benefits. Also, the company that you work with will have to be large enough to be required to bear workers' comp benefits. In case there are not at least four staff members, then the Employer isn't expected to carry work comp coverage except if it is a building and construction job Also, there are certain jobs that usually are not protected in Florida under workers' compensation. Examples of occupations that are not covered are nearly all real estate agents, owner-operators of semis, almost all volunteers, and taxi drivers.

So let's suppose you qualify as an employee under the workers' comp program, does that mean that you're entitled to benefits if you suffer injuries or have an accident at the workplace? Just like many legal questions, the answer is that it depends. First, the accident or injury must "arise out of" and be "in the course and scope" of employment. Arising out of work basically denotes that some element of the work led to the accident. An example of a relatively common injury instance at the workplace that is not commonly a work-related accident is a heart attack or stroke. If you're sitting at your desk and you suffer a heart attack in the course of work hours, this is not going to count as a worker comp injury. It may have occurred at work, but the work did not trigger the heart attack. Whether or not you have an extremely stressful job and you're supervisor has been harassing you relentlessly and you have a stroke due somewhat to the other psychological toll work takes on you, this is not going to be covered. The cardiac arrest, stroke, or other "internal failures " are considered to be personal in nature and not related to your job duties. Therefore the fact that the incident occurred at work is not good enough. Exceptions to these exclusions arise if: (a) you are engaged in an unusual stress or exertion at work, or (b) you are involved in an employment where there is a probability that such activity is work-related - for instance, a police officer or fireman.

"In the course and scope of employment" is required for an accident to be protected under Workers Compensation Insurance. So as to be in the course of employment, you certainly have to be at your job. If you have a car or truck traffic collision either on your way to work or on your way home, the majority of the times those car accidents are not going to be regarded as job related injuries. There are exceptions. To remain in the range of employment, you must be performing a task related to work in other words at the very least engaged in some kind of reasonable activity the Company could have anticipated. If your position is to perform paperwork in an office space but you hurt yourself when you and your pal choose to have a race down the staircase to see who's in optimum shape that personal injury is certainly not going to be considered work-related. You have unreasonably drifted from your work duties to the point that what you're doing at the moment of personal injury is no more sufficiently connected to work to get considered work-related.

Therefore, let's say you've cleared the hurdles of being a worker that's injured in the course and scope of your job by an injury that arose out of work, what do you obtain? To be entitled to lost wages, you must miss a certain amount of work and the disability has to last a particular period of time. If you miss barely a week or so from your job, you're not going to be given lost wages. Also if you have an injury that heals within just three full weeks, you're not entitled to short-term benefits. If you do suffer an injury that manages to keep you out of job for a lengthy time, then you will get compensation. Nevertheless, this remuneration is not your entire salary. Rather you collect about two-thirds of what you were making at the time of the accident. If the doctor says no work at all, at that point you receive 66.67% of what you were making at the time of the injury. If the doctor suggests you can work with restrictions AND the Company is not able to accommodate those limitations, you may receive 64% of your earnings. But if your Boss is able to accommodate those limitations and you are making 80% of your pre-injury earnings, you get no compensation. So bottom line is that if you are missing work as a result of a work associated injury, you will lose earnings. The greater your injury, the more earnings you can lose. Unless you settle your case at some point, those lost earnings are gone for good and will not be recovered.

So let's claim that you've cleared the hurdles of being an employee that's injured or hurt in the course and scope of your job by an injury that arose out of work, what do you receive? To remain entitled to lost wages, you have to miss a particular amount of workdays and the incapacity has to last a certain period of time. If you miss out less than a week from work, you're not going to get lost wages. Also if you have an injury that heals within three weeks, you're not entitled to short-term benefits. If you do suffer an injury that keeps you out of job for an extended time, then you will earn compensation. Nevertheless, this remuneration is not your entire paycheck. Rather you obtain around two-thirds of what you were making at the time of the personal injury. If the health professional says no work at all, then you get 66.67% of what you were making at the time of the accident. If the medical professional claims you can work with limitations AND the Business is not able to accommodate those limitations, you may get 64% of your wages. But if your employer is able to accommodate those limitations and you are making 80% of your pre-injury wages, you get no reimbursement. So bottom line is that if you are missing work as a result of a work-related injury, you will lose earnings. The lengthier your disability, the more wages you can forfeit. Unless you settle your case at some time, those lost wages are gone for good and will definitely not be recovered.

A further constraint on your ability to receive lost wages is that those benefits are only given for a specific period of time. Once you have attained maximum medical improvement, which is the physicians way of suggesting you're on the right track now, you do not get any more temporary benefits. Despite the fact that you have not gone back to work or your position is no longer available, your temporary benefits end. If you receive an impairment rating as a result of a permanent injury, you will receive permanent impairment benefits, but those benefits are less than the temporary and they are very short lived. They generally just last a matter of a few weeks or months. Just very handful of injured workers, the most severely hurt, have a likelihood of obtaining long term permanent benefits called permanent total disability.

If it relates to medical care, your rights or benefits also have big constraints. If you have an injury that entails urgent care, then you can get that care without first obtaining Company or workers' comp insurance company authorization. After that very first treatment, who you see for health care is not your choice. Your Employer or more often its workers comp insurance company will inform you who exactly you can treat with. If you don't prefer the health professional they select, then you can obtain a one-time change but that's it. Furthermore, you don't get to choose that next medical professional either. One more time the work comp insurance carrier picks the health professional. You can obtain what is called an IME, or "independent medical doctor", but you have to pay for that physician expense. Your health insurance won't pay for it.

One particular of the few beneficial elements of the health care is that you don't pay for it period, other than a $10 copayment right after you reach maximum medical improvement. The insurance company is accountable for all other expenses of treatment including prescribed drugs and physical therapy. Still as you have the ability to probably see now, workers' compensation is not an outstanding system. It's also a complicated system.

If you find yourself in the work comp system, you're better off obtaining advice and perhaps legal representation sooner rather than later. Errors made in the workers' compensation system might be difficult if not impossible to unwind. Moreover some mistakes can guarantee the end of your case entirely. So if you have a workers' compensation accident, contact us without delay. The consultation is free of cost, and you are under no commitment to retain us. Assuming that you do hire us, you won't be out of pocket for any fees or costs. We only gets paid when we get benefits for our clients!

We Do Not Make money Unless You Do