The Major Differences Between A Worker’s Comp And Personal Injury Case

A dilemma for those working in construction is that when they are injured on the job, should they file a worker’s compensation case or a personal injury case? At Eric Roy Law Firm, we make our clients who work with our personal injury attorney in Las Vegas, NV aware of the difference between the two as they have varying degrees of difficulty in obtaining compensation and the allowable compensation will be different between the two as well.

What is workers compensation? It’s a “kind” of insurance that provides cash benefits of medical care to workers who are injured as a direct result of their job. The employers pay for the insurance and do not require the employees to contribute to the cost of compensation

Major Differences

Personal injury case: If you are injured at work you can only file a personal injury case if someone is at fault, that is, if someone else’s negligence contributed to your injury. You could slip and fall by whatever means at the property you’re working at and no one could be at fault for the hazard that was there but yourself. However, if someone else causes the spill and workplace policies dictate that inspections be regularly carried out and that spills are cleaned up in a timely manner, the company could be held liable for the spill that was never cleaned up. 

You also stand to gain more from the case because you are entitled to benefits from pain and suffering as you are entitled to recover all the damages you’ve suffered from lost earnings, medical bills, future medical expenses (if applicable) loss of enjoyment of life, as well as punitive damages against the wrongdoer if the courts decide to apply this. The big caveat is that compensation or rather the compensation you’re seeking isn’t always guaranteed in a personal injury case. You and your personal injury lawyer have to fight to gain it through negotiations or going to trial if necessary.

Worker’s compensation case: In a worker’s comp case the process of obtaining compensation is ostensibly easier, you needn’t go through negotiations to prove fault as it is not required to prove it to gain compensation in this instance. The tradeoff is that you can only receive compensation of income and certain medical bills compared to a personal injury case where you stand to gain so much more. Also when you file for worker’s comp, you usually waive your right to sue. So if you feel like you’re not getting enough compensation and you want to sue for more, you won’t be able to unless the employer’s intentional act caused the injury amongst other loopholes.