What’s the Difference Between Personal Injury and Workers’ Compensation Claims?
You’ve been injured in an accident. There’s so much to do: rounding up witnesses, filling out injury reports, pending doctor visits– it’s understandable that you may be overlooking one very important aspect. Legally speaking, it’s very important to understand whether your accident falls under worker’s compensation or if, instead, it qualifies as a personal injury case. You might be asking, is there really a difference between the two and if so, what? Here are some answers to help you out.
Some important differences between Workers’ Comp and Personal Injury Cases:
- The biggest and most important difference is that a personal injury claim is based on fault and a workers’ compensation case is not.
- In a workers’ compensation case, any employee injured on the job is entitled to workers’ compensation benefits, with some very limited exceptions. On the other hand, the fact that you were injured on someone else’s property doesn’t automatically entitle you to compensation– it might be a “fault less” accident.
- The biggest difference in damages between a personal injury claim or lawsuit and a workers’ compensation case is that you are not entitled to benefits for pain and suffering in a workers’ compensation case. In a personal injury claim or lawsuit on the other hand, you are (they include lost earnings, lost earning capacity, medical bills, future medical expenses, and others).
- Workers’ compensation laws ensure that workers injured on the job would get weekly benefits and medical bills paid. In return, injured workers can’t sue employers/ co-workers for negligence and can’t collect damages for pain and suffering.
So now you have a rough idea of the differences between the two types of claims. The next step: contact your friends at Costa Ivone, so they can review your case.
