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When a worker is injured on the job that person has a workers compensation case. Employers provide workers compensation insurance to protect employees who become injured at work. The only requirement for this type of case is a job related injury. It doesn't matter who is at fault, as the concept of negligence does not enter into the picture. The injured worker is entitled to, among other things, payment of medical bills, disability payments while they are off work, and a settlement if they have a permanent disability. In such a case one cannot collect traditional damages associated with a personal injury case such as emotional distress/pain and suffering. I will not go into all the details or the requirements of the foregoing as it is outside the scope of this article.

As we know from preceding articles, if one is injured due to the fault of a 3rd party (i.e. other than their employer) and outside of the work environment, they have a personal injury case against that person or entity. Traditional negligence theories form the basis of the claim and one can collect compensatory damages (including pain and suffering and emotional distress), as well as(under certain circumstances)punitive damages to punish the wrongdoer.

On occasion a single event can form the basis of a case that is a combination of both a workers compensation case and a personal injury case. If an individual is on the job and injured due to the negligence of a 3rd party, i.e. a person or entity other than their employer, then they have a case that is both a workers compensation case involving their employer as well as a personal injury case against the negligent party who caused the personal injury. The most common situation where we see this combination case occur is in a car accident situation. The worker will be on the job and will be involved in a car accident caused by a 3rd party. It can arise in other situations as well including work injuries caused by defective or unsafe products.

A number of rules apply to these workers compensation/personal injury combination cases. Significantly, anything paid out by the work comp insurance carrier including medical bills, disability payments, etc are reimbursable from the proceeds of the third party personal injury case. This is an important factor to take into account in order to determine the feasibility from an economic standpoint of asserting both cases. An experienced personal injury attorney will be able to assess the merits of asserting these workers compensation personal injury cases

Whenever a person is injured on the job an evaluation of the potential of a personal injury case should be made in addition to the obvious work related injury case. Once again, an experienced personal injury lawyer sees these situations all the time as is expert in assessing such a situation.