Do you think they will fire me if they know I have contacted you? I cannot afford to lose this job. I have a wife and 3 children at home.
–Edgar
Jodi Ginsberg responds: Edgar, I do not know if they will fire you. That is something you will have to determine on your own. The fact of the matter is you can get terminated whether you have an attorney or not especially if they see you cannot do your job because you are injured. That is not right, but it happens all the time.
Employees get injured and do not want to pursue workers comp because they fear losing their job. They avoid going to the doctor, they do not file a workers comp claim and then get fired anyway.
Realize that if you go beyond 30 days from date of your injury and do not report it to your supervisor as worker comp injury then you may be locked out of filing a claim.
You would then be in a really bad spot.. No job, no workers comp benefits and no way to get a new job because you are hurt.
Although workers’ compensation is supposed to prevent conflicts between employers and employees, I have found that workers comp law is one of the most adversarial areas of the law I have seen. Only divorce and domestic relations is worse.
If an employee has been hurt, the employer now has to deal with (1) an injured worker who cannot perform all of his job duties (2) an insurance claim (3) the likelihood that his insurance rates will go up (4) changing attitudes of other employees. In my experience an employee’s loyalty is rarely rewarded. Right now, I am working on a case where an 18 year employee received her termination letter while she was in the hospital and the employer (not the insurance company) is refusing to authorize funds for settlement.
I do not know your employer and maybe your situation is an exception to the rule. However, time and time again, I see dramatic changes in the attitude that an employer has to a long time employee after a workers’ comp claim is filed.
If your injury is at all serious, I think you need to protect yourself because I would not feel comfortable relying on an employer and its insurer to act in your best interest.
[tags] filing a claim for workers compensation benefits, workers comp and statute of limitations, Georgia workers compensation [/tags]
Jodi Ginsberg
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Since I was hired on 2/1/07 and up until the present moment as Accounting Manager and promoted to Controller, the company I work for has endured severe financial hardship. Most of these 6 years I have not had the tools to do my job properly (money), I have been asked to make payment plans on behalf of my employer and I have been asked to lie to vendors about when we might be able to pay them. After enduring this hardship for 6 years now, this is not a physical injury of course but it has certainly put a severe amount of emotional stress on me which has been quite detrimental to me. Because of this long endured stress, I can no longer do my job as I should without the money to do it with and being startled whenever the phone rings thinking it will be a vendor which is seriously past due as far as being paid. I am afraid I will have to file a claim and resign respectfully.