By: Russell Keener  —  January 5, 2012
 

In the state of  Geor­gia, our Workers’Compensation laws pre­clude you from fil­ing what is called a tort (or neg­li­gence action) against your employer.  How­ever, if your job injury arose from the fault of some­one other than your employer, you most likely have what is called a third party action.  It is impor­tant to note that under the Geor­gia Workers’Compensation law you can not col­lect the full value of your injury, there are lim­its, and the laws are very spe­cific about what you can col­lect.  Under Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion law, you are allowed to col­lect a weekly check (which may not be enough to reim­burse you for what you were actu­ally mak­ing at the employer), a dis­abil­ity rat­ing (which is also lim­ited by how much you were mak­ing and thus not nec­es­sar­ily a true reflec­tion of how badly you are dis­abled), and get your past med­ical bills paid.  What your Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion lawyer will not be able to col­lect are what are called gen­eral dam­ages.  Your Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion lawyer can­not col­lect gen­eral dam­ages, because they are not allowed to be col­lected under Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion law.  As a mat­ter of fact, you are specif­i­cally pre­cluded from col­lect­ing the value of your gen­eral dam­ages by Geor­gia Workers’Compensation law.

Any injury aris­ing either on the job or through the neg­li­gence of another has two dam­age com­po­nents, gen­eral dam­ages and spe­cial dam­ages. Spe­cial dam­ages are the eas­i­est to iden­tify and cal­cu­late.  Basi­cally, open your check­book and see what checks were writ­ten or money (pay­roll) that is miss­ing because of your injury and those are your spe­cial dam­ages.  Gen­eral dam­ages, on the other hand, are dam­ages that are real, but more dif­fi­cult to cal­cu­late.  Gen­eral dam­ages would include, but are not lim­ited too, your pain and suf­fer­ing and your loss of use and enjoy­ment of life.

A work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion case com­bined with a third party action (an injury aris­ing from the fault of some­one, or a busi­ness, other than the one from whom you get your nor­mal pay­check) allows you to col­lect a reim­burs­ment closer to the full value of your injury.  It allows you to col­lect both gen­eral dam­ages and spe­cial damages.

With this infor­ma­tion there are still things you must watch for in a Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion case.  The law gives the Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion Insur­ance com­pany the abil­ity to try to get some of their money back from your third party action, this is called sub­ro­ga­tion.  The hur­dle they have to over­come is that before they are enti­tled to col­lect a sub­ro­ga­tion from your thrird party action, they have the bur­den of prov­ing that the money you received from your third-party action makes you “whole”.  Not sur­pris­ingly, this is called the Geor­gia “made whole doc­trine.”  This is an extremely dif­fi­cult bur­den for the Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion Insur­ance Com­pany to prove, but can be annoy­ing if your Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion lawyer failes to make pro­vi­sions in your Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion Set­tle­ment whereby the employer/insurer agree to waive their “sub­ro­ga­tion rights”.

Addi­tion­ally, if your job injury is seri­ous enough to cause you a per­me­nant dis­abil­ity that pre­vents you from being able to work in the future (given your lim­i­ta­tions, age, edu­ca­tion, and work expe­ri­ence), you may be enti­tled to Social Secu­rity Dis­abil­ity ben­e­fits.  Social Secu­rity Dis­abil­ity ben­e­fits (SSDI) is a Fed­eral pro­gram.  Geor­gia Work­ers’ Com­pen­sa­tion is a state program.

If you have been injured on the job by a per­son or busi­ness other than your employer and/or if the result­ing dis­abil­ity may qual­ify you for SSDI ben­e­fits, you need a Mari­etta law firm capa­ble of han­dling all three claims.  The inter­ac­tion of these three case areas is very del­i­cate and com­plex.  While you could hire three dif­fer­ent law firms, one for the work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion claim, one for the third party action, and one for the SSDI clsim, why would you?  By han­dling all three claims at one firm, you have one point of con­tact for all of your cases.  By using one law firm, all of your med­ical records, which are nec­es­sary in all three cases, are in the same place.  By using one law firm, you can rest assured that the inter­ac­tion between the three claims is con­sid­ered and worked to your benefit.

The Keener Law Firm has more than 20 years of expe­ri­ence rep­re­sent­ing the injured and dis­abled.  We are famil­iar with how your Geor­gia work­ers’ com­pen­sa­tion case inter­re­lates with a Geor­gia 3^rd party action and a poten­tial SSDI claim.  We also offer a free, pri­vate con­sul­ta­tion.  You can reach us at 770–955-3000.  See what our clients say about us by click­ing HERE.