Workers’ compensation
If you have been injured in LA and have been sent to a TX company doctor, contact my office to discuss your rights.
Workers’ compensation is a legal remedy whereby an employee who is injured on the job is automatically entitled to certain benefits. The benefits can include medical care for the injury, indemnity wage benefits, vocational rehabilitation services, and/or death benefits. These benefits are the obligation of the employer and are paid directly to the employee by the employer or its workers’ compensation insurer. Every employer, unless statutorily exempted, is responsible for the medical care and the payment of indemnity wage benefits to any employee who is injured while in the course and scope of his or her employment.
The law covers both mental and physical injuries from either accidents or occupational diseases. However, a mental injury must be the result of a physical injury or of a sudden, unexpected and extraordinary stress related to the employment and in either case must be proved by clear and convincing evidence. An accident is defined by the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Act as an unexpected or unforeseen actual, identifiable, precipitous event happening suddenly or violently, with or without human fault, and directly producing at the time objective findings of an injury which is more than simply a gradual deterioration or progressive degeneration. An occupational disease is defined by the Louisiana Workers’ Compensation Act as only that disease or illness which is due to causes and conditions characteristic of and peculiar to the particular trade, occupation, process, or employment in which the employee is exposed to such disease.
The event causing the injury must arise out of and be within the course and scope of the employee’s employment. Generally, the fault of the employer or employees does not affect the comprehensibility of an injury. However, no compensation may be allowed if the injury was caused by the employee’s willful intention to injure himself/herself or others; or by the injured employee’s intoxication at the time of the injury, unless resulting from activities in pursuit of the employer’s interests or from activities in which the employer procured and encouraged the use of the beverage or substance. An employee may not be entitled to benefits if he is the aggressor in an unprovoked physical altercation. The employee may not be entitled to benefits if it is determined that he/she was a participant in “horseplay” at the time that the injury occurred.
An employee who suffers a covered injury may be entitled to weekly/monthly indemnity benefits if the injury prevents the employee from returning to work for more than seven calendar days. The first installment of benefits payable for Temporary Total Disability (TTD), Permanent Total Disability (PTD) or death shall become due on the fourteenth day after the employer or insurer has knowledge of the injury or death. No compensation shall be paid for the first week after the injury occurs unless the disability from the injury continues for two weeks or longer after the date of the accident. This “waiting period” indemnity payment shall be paid after the first two weeks have elapsed.