How the Coronavirus May Impact Personal Injury Settlements

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The novel coronavirus has caused financial insecurity for millions of Americans. This is especially true for those who are out of work because of a car accident, slip and fall incident, or pedestrian accident. If you were off of work before COVID-19 became a pandemic, you may not qualify for unemployment or remote working options. This puts additional financial pressure on you. This leaves you with a difficult question: what will happen to your personal injury claim in the age of coronavirus?

Possible Delays with Insurance Settlements

There may be issues with claims that are settled with insurance. This is likely relevant to your claim since the majority of personal injury cases settle long before they ever get to court. Insurance companies are experiencing economic struggles at the moment, and many have seen their stocks tank as the economy has crashed. As a result, they may be reluctant to pay out large settlements or negotiate with accident victims. Adjusters may even be limited in their ability to offer fair settlements.

Furthermore, the primary reason that insurance companies settle quickly is to avoid court. Going to court is extremely expensive for insurance companies, and they want to settle claims before they have to pay attorney fees and keep a claim on their docket for months. Right now, though, courts across the country are closed. There is no risk of going to court anytime soon. Insurance companies know that even if you are willing to wait until courts reopen, that gives them plenty of time to wear you down or wait for you to run out of money and consider a settlement. If you don’t accept their first offer, they may be willing to walk away from negotiations.

Limited Legal Options

When the insurance company is unwilling to offer a fair settlement, your next option is to file a lawsuit against them. In normal times, this generally inspires a very quick turnaround on their part and results in a more practical offer. Right now, though, the wheels of justice are turning more slowly. You have to wait, continue getting necessary medical care, and maintain logs of the costs you incur because of your accident. For families that live paycheck to paycheck, this wait may be difficult.

Difficulties Obtaining Medical Care

Perhaps one of the biggest challenges for those with a personal injury claim is the lack of medical care. Of course, emergency rooms across the country have set up separate areas for COVID-19 patients and other emergency patients. You may be able to get emergency care after your accident. However, you may find it much harder to get the routine and ongoing care you need to heal.

Quite a few clinics and non-emergency specialties have completely shut down because of the coronavirus. Even if they do not primarily work with patients who are at high risk of contracting COVID-19, a substantial amount of people with this virus are asymptomatic carriers. By staying open for non-emergency checkups and procedures, doctors could be seen to be encouraging the spread of COVID-19.

Medical care is a key component of most personal injury cases, so being unable to find a provider is a big setback. This is one reason it is very helpful to have an attorney. They have connections throughout the community, and they will likely be able to find a way to get you the care you need.

Why You Need an Attorney

Not only can an attorney help you get around issues with finding medical care, they can also guide you through the rest of the personal injury process. As noted earlier, insurance companies are a little bit less eager to settle right now. They know that most people will run out of money before courts reopen and that if they wait long enough, people will accept an even lower amount.

Having an attorney may make insurance adjusters a little bit more willing to negotiate. If the threat of a future lawsuit is a genuine concern and they know that you have a solid case, they may increase their offer simply to settle the matter and move on. Make sure you choose an experienced attorney who is not afraid to play hardball with unethical insurance companies.

Are you dealing with the aftermath of a serious injury in the age of the novel coronavirus? You’re not alone. Many other people are facing the same struggles and wondering how they are going to get by. The team at Reeves & Mestayer understands your plight and wants to help you get the compensation you deserve. To talk to us in greater detail about your case and explore your options, reach out to us today to set up an appointment.

Can I Get Workers’ Comp If I Get Hurt While Working from Home?

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Telecommuting is a flexible option enjoyed by thousands of workers each year, but with the rise of the novel coronavirus, suddenly millions of people have had to learn how to work from home efficiently. This raises a number of important questions. How are employees held accountable for being productive at home? How can teams that once worked within the same space reach the same level of efficiency while everyone is at home? If an employee is injured while working from home, do they qualify for workers’ compensation?

Your Employer Has the Same Obligations, Regardless of Where You Work

Employers are obligated to provide employees with a safe workplace. This is true whether the employee works in an office, on construction sites, or from home. When an employee is injured while working, it does not matter where they were when it occurred; they generally qualify for workers’ compensation.

Workers’ compensation is a no-fault system that protects both the worker and the employer. The worker does not have to prove that the employer erred and caused their injury. The employer does not have to expose themselves to personal injury lawsuits.

Because the obligations and responsibilities of the employer and employee are the same in a work-from-home situation, the right to workers’ compensation is the same.

Policies and Procedures

However, employers do have less control over your work environment when you choose to work from home. This does potentially expose them to more workers’ compensation claims if their employees work in unsafe areas. Because of this, many employers have policies and procedures put in place to minimize their risks and ensure that employees are taking necessary precautions.

Some employers do an initial work-from-home check to verify the safety and efficiency of your work-from-home setup. They may look at where you work, what equipment you have, how you have it positioned, and how much it supports your work tasks. They may make recommendations or require you to make certain changes. For example, if your work-from-home area is a shared table used by your kids to do art projects, they may tell you to move to a dedicated working area that does not expose your equipment to potential hazards.

Employers may also set up work office guidelines that provide training on safe setup, ergonomic equipment, and break guidelines.

After an initial work-from-home check, your employer may perform occasional checks to see if you have made the necessary changes or if you have made any unsafe changes to your work area. Failing to abide by reasonable policies may endanger your workers’ compensation claim if you get hurt because of an unsafe setup.

Another step that many companies take to reduce workers’ compensation claims is to have set working hours. Consider, for example, an employee who does not have set hours. They ram their toe into their dresser while getting up at night and suffer a fracture. They then claim that they had been up late working on a project when they stubbed their toe and file a workers’ compensation claim. This is a clear abuse of the workers’ comp system and is exactly what employers are trying to avoid. To protect themselves—and to prevent employees from working excessively long hours, which also puts them at risk for injuries—they may require employees to maintain set hours while working from home.

Reducing Risks

How can you protect yourself while working from home? Simply be as careful as you would be at work. Ensure that your work-from-home setup protects you from repetitive stress injuries, take regular breaks to prevent eye strain and muscle pain, and report any injuries to your manager right away. If you let them know when your wrists are sore from typing, they can help you take steps to prevent those injuries from becoming more serious.

What to Do If You Are Hurt While Working from Home

If you are hurt while working at home, let your manager know immediately. The sooner you report an injury, the easier it is to get necessary assessments and treatment. This also protects your workers’ compensation claim, as you have a limited window of time in which you can get compensation.

You may also want to reach out to a workers’ compensation attorney. While workers’ comp should cover just about any work-related injury or illness, employers have been known to dispute claims and fight to deny employees the compensation they deserve. When this occurs, you need an attorney to protect your rights and secure your rightful compensation.

If you have questions about a workers’ compensation claim or you worry that your rights are being violated by your employer, reach out to the team at Reeves & Mestayer, we are here to guide you through this process. Call us or fill out our online contact form now.

Helping the Community During the COVID-19 Outbreak

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Community building and support has never been more important than it is right now. Over the course of weeks—and in some communities, days—entire support systems and routines have disappeared. This is our time to shine. As community members, we can step up, fill in the gaps, and make sure everyone gets through this as unscathed as possible. And even as we come to the end of the lockdowns, it will still be a while before things return to “normal”, whatever that ends up looking like when all of this is over.  

Not sure how to help? Start with these ideas.

Making Direct Donations

One of the easiest and least time-intensive ways to give back to the community is to donate directly to those in need. When you are grocery shopping, donate $5 to help someone who comes up short in the checkout line. Donate gift cards to be used during senior/immunocompromised shopping hour. Venmo or PayPal a little bit to your local food bank and let them use your money as productively as possible. Check out the wish lists for your local homeless shelters and animal shelters and send an item or two whenever you have the money. These actions add up quickly and have an immediate positive impact on people.

Helping Local Businesses

Local businesses are struggling right now, and unless the situation resolves soon or people’s buying habits change, many risk going out of business. That is why it’s so important for people across the country to support local businesses. If you used to have a weekly family dinner night where you’d go out to eat, order curbside pickup from a family-owned restaurant in your area. If you need art supplies, order from a local arts and crafts store.

Join community groups on NextDoor or Facebook to find out which local businesses are in need of community support and do what you can to help them get through. If you aren’t sure how to help, consider buying gift cards from favorite restaurants and shops. They are essentially an interest-free loan to these businesses to help them get through these challenging months.

Supporting Those Left Out from COVID-19 Outreach

Local government agencies, nonprofit organizations, and schools have done amazing work in reaching out to communities and making services widely available. However, there are always gaps; people who do not speak the local language, do not know how to look into which services are available, or don’t have familial support may struggle to take advantage of these opportunities.

If you speak a second language, find out if there are families in your area you can translate for. Perhaps you can help them sign up for food aid or get their kids signed up for online learning. If you know ASL, volunteer to translate press conferences or other events to ensure that the Deaf community has access to the same information as the hearing community. Help the elderly in your community get online and find out what resources are available to them.

Connecting with Others

Beyond the immediate physical needs of your community, a lot of people are struggling emotionally and socially. While you can’t set up play dates or Mom’s night out, you can set up online hangouts to help people get the social interaction they need. Perhaps a Zoom happy hour can help people take their minds off of current events, or perhaps kids who are missing their friends can play independently while talking each other on Zoom. Consider doing a book read aloud for children who don’t have the parental support they might need during this time. Many people want to participate in activities like this but lack the know-how or motivation to set it up themselves.

Learning the Needs of Your Neighborhood

If you are healthy and at low risk of complications from COVID-19, find out how you can help those in your neighborhood who aren’t in such a good position. For the elderly and immunocompromised, tasks like grocery shopping or picking up meds can seem life-threatening. However, the costs of grocery delivery aren’t always practical for those in this position.

If you’re able, you can take over grocery shopping for neighbors in need and drop off prescriptions. In some neighborhoods, elderly and immunocompromised individuals put up green construction paper in their window when they’re good, yellow when they will need help soon, and red if they have needs that must be immediately met. Consider setting this up in your neighborhood and recruiting volunteers who are also willing to help.

We are all in this together, and by doing what we can, we will come out of this as a stronger and more united community. At Reeves & Mestayer, we are committed to helping those in the Biloxi area. We remain open and are taking every possible precaution to keep clients and potential clients safe. Call us or reach out to us online to learn more.