QUESTION
Can my employer or doctor be liable for my work-related injury?
Asked on Oct 10th, 2014 on Labor and Employment - California
More details to this question:
I had a back injury in 2009 that is work-related. A QME doctor did not wait for report, saying that nothing was wrong with my low back. I had three slipped discs. I told my attorney at that time but he said to just let my car accident case pick it up. I feel either my old job, or doctor should pay for this injury.
2 ANSWERS
Edwin K. Niles
You don't get two bites of the same apple. If you make a W.C. claim and are successful in your auto claim, there will be an off-set.
Answered on Oct 15th, 2014 at 5:50 PM
Workers Compensation Attorney serving San Bernardino, CA
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Nancy Wallace, Attorney at Law
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You can re-open a workers compensation claim with PROOF that you have additional disability within 5 years of the date of injury, so if your injury occurred in November 2009 you have time to pursue this; if your work injury occurred in March 2009, you waited too long. The 'attorney at the time' committed legal malpractice, you should have pursued BOTH the workers compensation benefits AND the Personal Auto Injury claim, and find out from the medical evidence what caused the discs to move out of place. You write the 'QME did not wait for report' so that QME opinion could be disallowed and you could get a treating physician's report evaluating a 2009 MRI that showed newly-ruptured discs (back in 2009). But when you wait 5 years to assert your rights, most of those rights disappear and you get nothing.
Answered on Oct 15th, 2014 at 2:10 AM