TRANSCRIPT 🔗
Welcome to Injured and informed with Jake McKenzie. Welcome back to Injured and informed with Jake McKenzie. Jake is a Charleston based attorney who's practiced focus on helping injured South Carolina and seek full justice after car wrecks on the job injuries and unsafe property conditions. I'm Evan Mackin. Today we're talking about workers compensation in South Carolina. Jake will explain what it covers, how the process works, and what every employee should know if they get hurt on the job. Jake, sir, welcome back. Evan, good to be with you. Thanks for having me. Awesome stuff, Jake. A lot of people have heard the workers compensation, but aren't exactly sure what it means, especially if they've never been involved in it. How do you usually explain it to clients who are new to that process? Well, workers compensation just as the name implies it's when you suffer a work injury as a result of an accident that occurs while you're on the job. So while you're in the course and scope of your employment, if you get injured due to an accident, then that injury is compensable on the condition that your employer has workers compensation insurance in South Carolina. Well, let me back up on that, sorry. If your employer in South Carolina who has four or more employees is supposed to carry workers compensation insurance. Okay. Now sometimes if there's an employer who doesn't know the law or they may not have insurance there is an uninsured employer reserve fund that will come in and stand in the shoes of a, as if you had, as if your employer had workers compensation insurance. But most cases, folks have it. Employers have it if they have at least four or more employees. But that's basically what it is. But if you're injured on the job as a result of an accident and there are four or more employees, then you will be entitled to the workers compensation statutes in the laws of South Carolina. Now when we say employee, sometimes that can be, that can be the source of a dispute because sometimes folks have 10, 99 employees. Now, you could be technically a 10, 99 employee and it's just more of a label, you know, and so, but that's something that lawyers will often have to have to fight over. But the other requirement is, you get hurt on the job, due to an accident at work, years there's at least four employees that work for your employer, including the owner. You also have to give notice to your employer within 90 days. So, most of the time, that's, you know, people satisfy that. I mean, you get hurt on the job. You're going to let your supervisor know that day, right? So, that's typically always met, but it can be another source of dispute when it comes to your worker's compensation claim. So, the important thing to remember, hurt by an accident on the job, you got 90 days to report the injury, but you should go ahead and report it, you know, that day or the next day. And there should be a fusion about that. Okay, okay. So, what kind of injuries typically qualify for workers comp? You know, are they any of that surprise people or is it broader than we think of? Yeah, there are some that do surprise people. You can have sometimes people get, well, there's so many different types of industries and jobs. There's a lot of dangerous jobs out there, folks at work at factories, work on cable lines, folks that have our machinists, you can have repetitive trauma, that over time causes damage to your wrist. You might develop carpal tunnel syndrome. You might be exposed to toxic substances and over time, that could cause, you know, that could become a compensable injury. There's also even cases where psychological trauma occurs and due to the effects be it post-traumatic stress syndrome or something along those lines. So even at times, even psychological, psychic injuries, mental injuries can be compensable as well. Those are a little, not as straightforward as say, you know, you fell off a ladder while you were working at some big retailers and you broke your leg, you know, that's a little bit more clear cut. But the rule you should, if anything happens at work that hurts you because you were on the job, you need to call a lawyer, you should call a lawyer. And another thing to keep in mind too, is that when in South Carolina, the carrier, the insurance carrier, the workers' compensation, insurance carrier, they have the right to direct your treatment. So they're going to send you to doctors within their network, it tries to function like health insurance would. So they're going to send you to their doctors and within their network. If you are so injured that you are out for at least seven days and 14 days, then you can also be entitled to total and temporary disability payments which will be equal to your compensation rate, which is two thirds of your average weekly wage. But you gotta be out of work for at least seven days. And now going back to the treatment, if you're, if they're going to send you to their doctors, so any good workers' compensation attorney is going to have in the back of their mind, well, I mean, these are the insurance carriers doctors. They may not be, they may be trying to work against it, minimize. You know, who's paying their bills, right? And while we always want to expose bias because that helps us get to the truth. So if someone's paying, if the worker's compensation carriers paying the doctor and the doctor gets a lot of business from this carrier, you know, I think that that gives rise to certain amount of skepticism. So now it doesn't mean all the time. I mean, there's a lot of very good, honest, excellent doctors that will treat you that are within the network of these workers' compensation carriers, but sometimes we need a second opinion. And in that case, you can have what's called an independent medical evaluation or other forms of treatment that your attorney can help you coordinate that and facilitate that. So we can get a full picture of how bad your injuries are.
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Yeah, but Jake, some people think the filing claim means that you're actually suing your employer. Can you kind of clear up that misconception that some people might have? So it is a claim against your employer. They're, but they have the insurance. I mean, that's what it's there for. They pay their premiums and so, but it's basically all an administrative process. So in workers' compensation, you don't have pain in suffering. It's just a function of how injured you are, what you're, how much you were making and what the body part affected was. So like, your leg is going to be worth more than your pinky and so on and so forth. So different body parts that you're making are different body parts. And it's all according to statute. But essentially the insurance company steps in and you're mainly dealing with them and their attorneys. So they'll often have an attorney stepped in. But it is a claim against your employer. They're supposed to have it. They have to have it subject to the conditions we discussed. And so there are no jury trials in workers' compensation. So it's a fairly straightforward system. But you, another thing is in South Carolina, code section 41-1-80, it protects workers. So your employer can't fire you because you have a work injury. They can't fire you because you're a witness to a work injury. They can't retaliate against you is the wording of the statute. So keep that in mind. I mean, again, you have rights you're protected. And I think overall we want to live in a society where we care about our injured workers. I mean, folks are trying to put food on the table, trying to hold it down, be a provider for their families and themselves. And if you are injured on the job, if we didn't have the workers' compensation statutes, and you had to go through like a common law type situation where you go file a lawsuit in court, your case may not come up for trial for two years. In the meantime, you're injured, you have bills to pay. It's a decent system. It's not perfect. Nothing is, especially in our justice system. But guys like me are out there trying to make it better every day. Absolutely. So, Jekyll, are important is it to document these things? What happened, witness names, photos, reports? What details tend to matter most when it comes to this documentation? I think that's important. I think especially maybe not as quite as important as maybe a car wreck, but it's always going to be important to document your injury. So let's say I go to use the restroom while I'm on the job and there's some terrible spill on the floor. I don't see it because it's a clear liquid and I slip and fall and now I've got to fell on my shoulder and I got to get so shoulder surgery. In that type of situation, it'd probably be a good idea to take a picture of the conditions of the floor. Now, workers' compensation in South Carolina, it is a no-fault system. So, even if you cause your injuries, so long as it's an accident, but even if you cause your own injuries, there's still going to be compensable subject to the requirements of the statute. But that's another thing to keep in mind. It doesn't really matter how negligent or reckless a coworker was in workers' compensation. Again, it's pretty straightforward. You're injured on the job. It's caused by an accident at work. It's going to be compensable. Now, if you're walking down the hallway at an office and you have a heart attack, that's not going to be a worker's compensation claim, right? That makes sense. There was no accident. There was no... That didn't really happen as a result of your job. That was sort of an idiosyncratic thing. But anyway, yeah, I hope that. Communication can possibly make or break the cases. But why is this good communication between the worker or the employer, and maybe even the doctor? Why is that important in these kind of situations? Well, I think, well, for one thing, it's required that you inform your employer that I've noticed of the claim or the injury, then they can't make their initial steps that they're required to do. Typically, that's going to mean they call their carrier and they're going to make a claim. Hey, my employee was injured on the job or making a complaint or sorry, making a claim. Typically, they'll be like an incident form that the employer will fill out and these will be things that typically an insurance company would want. Because an insurance company is obviously going to have to do some investigation too to see how the injury happened. And also, depending on the injury, it's going to affect the type of treatment that you need. So if you hurt your hand, they're going to send you to a hand specialist. If you hurt your eye, something kits you in the eye and people can go blind work while on the job. And so they'll send you to an eye doctor. If you hurt your knee or your shoulder they'll send you to an orthopedic doctor, or at least they're supposed to, depending on your injuries. Sometimes folks just need physical therapy. So when you do see your doctor, you want to communicate to them and describe what happens, what your symptoms are. And good medical providers are going to be good at this. They'll talk to you so that they can get a full perspective of what your injuries are and given honest appraisal of how injured you are and what your treatment should be. So, Jake, are there other situations where an injured worker might also have a separate personal injury claim outside of the worker's compensation? Like, you know, against a subcontractor or maybe the equipment manufacturer? Yes, so that is something that can happen. A classic, that's called third party claims. So the classic case of a classic example of that would be I'm a delivery person, work for a delivery service, parcel service and delivering packages. I'm at a red light, a drunk driver hits me. I get injured. You would have both a worker's compensation claim under this set of facts but you would also have a third party direct
claim against the person who hits you in this scenario. It's important though that you resolve the worker's compensation claim first, okay? So you want to get that resolved first before you move on to the third party case. If you don't resolve the worker's compensation claim first, you may lose your right to present that claim. So it's important to get the order right when you're heard on the job. But yeah, totally. I mean, you can have a situation where I'm delivering something to another store and I slip and fall or trip and fall in their store. And so I would have both a work injury and a third party claim. You know, we deal sometimes with folks who get hurt in many different other types of instances. For instance, like the piece of equipment, like you said, maybe faulty. You may be operating a bulldozer. That's a defective product. You may be operating a piece of equipment that like a drill or something like that. That's defective. So that would be your third party case would be a product's case in those situations. So that does happen. And it's important to hire an attorney because they'll be able to guide you through that process. Right, right. So what tends to make these cases drag maybe longer than they should? How do you help clients keep this thing moving as a lawyer? Well, I mean, like any personal injury case, you know, typically within reason where you don't negotiate your claims until after you're done treating. Because we want a negotiation to embrace all of your damages. So all of your injuries, medical bills, et cetera. And in workers' compensation, you got an insurance company, the workers' compensation carrier, they're going to be paying their doctors to treat you. So it's not as important to worry about those medical bills, but you do want them to pay those. But sometimes treatment can just drag on, drag on. Now that could be because you're injured most likely, right? You're pretty injured. I mean, you just need more treatment because in workers' compensation, the goal is to get you to maximum medical improvement or what we say, MMI. At that stage, once you get to that stage, the doctor will then give you an impairment rating. And so that's a certain degree of permanency to your injuries. The doctor's saying, hey, we got your shoulder as good as we can get it within medical, certainly within reason. But unfortunately, you're still 5% impaired to your shoulder. You'll never get better than 95%. You'll never get back to 100%. At least that's the legal theory behind it. And so once you get that, then the attorney can really begin to negotiate your case on your behalf. Another option is wage loss. If there's more than one body part affected, and you can't do that job you were doing. And so basically, instead of being a guy who makes 100K a year working on cable lines or telephone lines, or HVAC, or electrician, now I got to be a greeter at some retailer. And so those cases, too. I mean, you need, again, it's always good to have a good attorney who can evaluate these things. But typically, another thing that can happen, that's good for clients to know, and injured victims out there, is that you want to follow your doctor's orders. Yeah, you want to go to your appointments. Don't miss your appointments. You want to be diligent in having and getting yourself healthy again and getting back to normal as the whole goal. The law can't go back in time and make it like this never happened. All we can do is try to make you whole through medical treatment, in many cases, through money. And that's what legal damages is. So it's important for you to make your appointments. And at the end of the day, I mean, if you don't care about your claim, you can't really expect anybody else to. It's very, very important to make your appointments. And look, it means life happens, right? I mean, if you need to miss an appointment, but make sure you call, have the courtesy to call, and reschedule it, that you're not neglecting your responsibility to get better. Absolutely. And Jake, for listeners who are back at work, but still dealing with the pain or maybe that limited movement, what steps can they take to be sure they're getting the benefits and the care they're entitled to? You need to call a good workers compensation lawyer. Please give me a call. I'm happy to help. And we'll make sure that the workers compensation carriers doing what they're supposed to do, that your doctors are doing what they're supposed to do, that your progress is advancing accordingly. And if it's not, we're going to make it right. Awesome, Jake, appreciate the time. Thanks, Evan, good to be with you. Oh, righty, that's it for today's episode of injured and informed with Jake McKenzie. If you'd like to learn more about the law office of Jacob C. McKenzie and how Jake helps injured clients across Sarah Carolina, pursue full justice, visit Jake McKenzie law firm.com. Thanks for listening. Don't forget to like, subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode with someone else that might find it helpful. Thank you so much, and we'll see you next time. Thanks, Evan, appreciate it. Thanks for watching. Be sure to hit that like and subscribe button and leave us a review in the comments.