If you are a work accident victim in New York, the law requires employers to maintain workers’ compensation insurance. Instead of having to sue your employer, workers’ compensation insurance pays cash benefits toward you lost wages and medical expenses without the necessity of a lawsuit. The tradeoff is that workers give up their right to sue their employers in most instances in exchange for coverage under workers’ compensation.
The goal of workers’ compensation is to help you to recover from your injury and return to work. Sometimes, however, the severity of the injury could keep you out of work for longer than just a few days or a few weeks. This is the reason workers’ compensation uses different classifications of disability to determine the number of weeks of benefits it will pay.
The following are thefour classifications of disability as determined by the injured worker’s doctor or health care provider:
A person with a permanent total disability can receive workers’ compensation benefits for an unlimited number of weeks. The other classifications limit the number of weeks of benefits a person may receive.
The law pertaining to workers’ compensation benefits is too complex for a single blog posting. This blog is not intended as legal advice which should only be obtained from a lawyer. A New City personal injury attorney would be a good source for legal advice and guidance about compensation for a workplace accident injury.