If you were ever hurt or injured, your natural response may be to seek out help from an attorney. You might consider the circumstances related to the injury when deciding who to contact. For example, if you were in a car accident, you would seek out the help of a Personal Injury attorney. If you were injured at work, you would contact a Worker’s Compensation attorney. What you might not realize is that the circumstances surrounding your injuries might require the work of multiple attorneys from several different practice areas. These attorneys should work together to fully compensate you for your injuries.
Let’s take a look at the crossroads where Personal Injury and Workers’ Compensation might meet to further exemplify this point.
The Scenario
Imagine that you work for a waste disposal company. Your job is to ride on the back of the garbage truck and collect trash. One day, a car accidentally t-bones your truck, causing you to fly off of the back of the truck. You hit the pavement, severely injuring your right shoulder. You undergo two major surgeries on your shoulder, but these do not completely heal your injury. You are never able to return to work at the waste disposal company.
Two Potential Cases
In this circumstance, you would have both a Workers’ Compensation and a Personal Injury case. Workers’ Compensation insurance, which would come from the waste disposal company, would be responsible for your wage loss and your medical bills. You would obviously also have a case against the at-fault driver’s insurance company. However, with a Personal Injury case, you may have the opportunity to recover damages from the underinsured motorist coverage under the garbage truck insurance policy and from your own auto insurance company.1 Personal Injury cases generally permit you to recover for your lost wages, medical bills, and pain and suffering. The ability to collect for pain and suffering is part of what differentiates a Personal Injury case from a Workers’ Compensation case.
Why Two Cases?
Vince Quatrini and I have worked on many cases like the above example, and have found that when we coordinate efforts in handling the Personal Injury case and Workers’ Compensation case we are able to obtain substantially more for our clients. Working independently, the highest settlements possible for a case like the above would be $40,000 from the Workers’ Compensation case and $100,000 from the Personal Injury case (for a total of $140,000). By working together, we were able to obtain $10,000 from the Workers’ Compensation case and $200,000 from the Personal Injury case for a total of $210,000. That’s an extra $70,000.
This type of remarkable result is only possible because our law firm coordinates our efforts internally on behalf of the client. If the client would have hired one firm for the Personal Injury case and another firm for Workers’ Compensation, this type of result would be very unlikely.
How Do I Know If I Qualify For Multiple Cases?
The best advice we can provide is to always call our office first. At QuatriniRafferty, we always treat your case as unique, and always seek to coordinate our efforts to maximize your recovery.
Think you might have a case? Put your trust in our team of attorneys at QuatriniRafferty. We know how to utilize our over 300 years of combined experience to obtain the most money possible for your injuries. Call us today to set up your free, no obligation consultation. (888-534-6016)
1 Uninsured and Underinsured Motorist Coverage is not required under Pennsylvania Law. If you don’t know what uninsured or underinsured motorist coverage is, please give our office a call. We are happy to review your auto insurance policy and explain it to you – free of charge.
