Can I Sue My Employer Over a Work Injury?
Generally, under workers compensation you are barred from having a lawsuit or a regular negligence claim against your employer. There’s a trade-off.
Worker’s Compensation is supposed to be a little bit more automatic than a negligence claim so you don’t have to wait for your benefits. That’s good, because your medical bills get paid as you go along, and your lost income gets paid as you go along, but the trade-off is you do not have a claim under most circumstances directly against your employer.
Now however, you could have a claim against somebody other than your employer for an injury that happens on the job. For example, if you’re working on a defective machine, and the defective machine causes the injury, and the defect in the machine was somebody’s fault other than your employer, that’s called a third-party claim, and those are good claims and an experienced attorney can handle for you.
Another example would be if, as part of your employment, you’re driving a vehicle, and you’re injured in an automobile crash that’s the fault of another driver, you may have both your worker’s compensation claim and a negligence claim against another driver. So you have to, again, seek competent, experienced advice in order to determine what types of claims you have to make sure you’re probably protected, and properly covered.