Tag Archives: notice of injury

When your employer thinks you are lying about your work injury

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When an employer fights a workers’ compensation claim, that dispute usually involves some dispute over the medical evidence and or a legal dispute as to whether an employee is covered by workers’ compensation.

But everyone once in awhile, employers deny claims purely because they don’t believe the employee was hurt at work. So, how does this happen and how can an employee protect themselves when it looks like their employer wants to railroad their workers’ compensation claim?

The presumption of fraud and confirmation bias

The insurance industry has grossly exaggerated the prevalence of workers’ compensation fraud.  However the myth of workers’ compensation fraud is ingrained in the popular mind. That fraud myth is particularly ingrained into the human resources and employee health professions. Employee health and HR people tend to be responsible for initially investigating work injuries. Often this presumption of fraud leads management to seek out information about an injury that favors their views. The fancy term for this is confirmation bias.

So how does confirmation bias play out when a work injury is being investigated. Let’s say the injury is unwitnessed, the employee doesn’t exactly recall what time the injury occurred and that the employee had a subpar employee review. All of these facts can be woven into a story about why the injury didn’t happen and/or that the employee just made up their injury.

How an employee can protect themselves

The first thing an employee can do to protect themselves is to immediately report their injury and report it through the required channels.  Legally an employee needs to report the injury as soon as practicable to someone in management

The worker should also make a report in writing via email, text or direct message to document what happened for themself.  It doesn’t necessarily have to be a boss or manager, it can be a co-worker, friend or family member. Anything that would document when you got hurt, where you got hurt and what you were doing.

I want to emphasize that legally you aren’t required to report in your injury in the manner required by employer in order to have a work injury covered in Nebraska. But if you want to win your workers’ compensation case against an employer who doesn’t believe you got hurt, you should do as many of those things as possible as it makes it easier to prove you were hurt at work. The fewer of those things you do, the more expensive, time consuming and less certain it is you will be able to get a good outcome in your workers’ compensation case.

Unfortunately, a denied claim means you should contact an attorney. At least in Nebraska, an attorney has broad powers to investigate a workers’ compensation claim. In practical terms, that means an attorney for employee with a denied workers’ compensation claims can request company documents and even take statements from coworkers, supervisors and managers about why a claim was denied. An attorney can take apart an employers denial and more importantly persuade a court that an employee was hurt at work.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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Workers’ Compensation Basics: Provide Notice of Injury

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This blog post is the fourth in a series that examines the basics of workers’ compensation.

Whether an injured employee provided notice of an injury to their employer is an issue that often arises in a workers’ compensation case. It is always part of an injured worker’s burden to prove that they provided notice of their injury to their employer. However, an employer may raise this issue as a possible defense against the injured worker’s claim for benefits. Making sure an employer knows about an injury, regardless of whether the injured worker knows for sure that it is work-related, is typically a very simple – but very important – part of a workers’ compensation case.

The reasons for requiring notice make a lot of sense when you think about it: if the employer does not know about the injury, how can the employer know an injured worker may require medical care or other benefits? Different employers will have different procedures for reporting accidents and injuries, so it is important for employees to consult their employee handbook to find out what their employer expects. Ultimately, the claim may be compensable whether the injured worker followed the rules or not, but it is always the best policy to be proactive and avoid unnecessary problems down the road.

What happens if an injured worker thinks his or her injury might be work-related, but he or she is not sure and the injury isn’t reported right away? Maybe an accident occurred at work, but the injured worker did not notice any symptoms until the next day? Or they knew they were hurt, but did not seek medical care for several weeks because they thought it would go away on its own? Nebraska workers’ compensation law requires an employee to notify their employer of an injury “as soon as practicable” after the accident occurred. There is no answer in Nebraska as to what, exactly, “as soon as practicable” means in terms of days, weeks or months. It will depend on the facts of the case. Ideally, an accident occurs and an employee provides notice in writing immediately following the accident. When things don’t turn out “ideally,” however, if an employee can prove that the employer had sufficient notice or knowledge of the employee’s injury to lead a reasonable person to conclude that the injury was potentially compensable, the notice is considered sufficient under Nebraska law. The question is whether the employer knew enough that a reasonable employer would conclude they had better investigate further. This type of notice may come in the form of requests for time off to attend medical appointments, showing up to work with a brace on or the fact that an employer processes the employee’s bills with his or her group health insurance.

The important thing to remember about notice is just that: it is important. It is an important and simple step to take whenever an employee is injured. It can also be complicated, so consult an experienced workers’ compensation attorney when you think you may have a notice problem or when your employer denies your claim because of an alleged lack of it.

Read the previous blog posts in the series by clicking on these links: 

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Workers' Comp Basics, Workers' Compensation, Workplace Injury and tagged , .