Workers Compensation in New Jersey

If you are injured on the job or develop work-related illness, you may be entitled to workers' compensation benefits. These fall into three categories:

• medical coverage to pay for your treatment and medication;
• temporary compensation, usually 70% of your normal pay, while you are out of work; and
• compensation for any permanent disability that results.

Most employers willingly provide the “med” and “temp” pay, usually without an attorney's involvement. However, they often try to avoid paying permanent disability benefits, often a lump sum payment. Most serious injuries result in some degree of permanent disability for which compensation is due. That’s where we come in.

We file a claim petition advising you employer that you have suffered a permanent injury in your work accident. The company will usually answer that petition. Your employer will send you for an evaluation of your injury. Their doctor's report will often refute that there was an accident or that there was any permanent injury, or it will minimize the injury. Sometimes their doctor will even admit the existence of a permanent injury, but say that it pre-existed the accident or was otherwise unrelated to it.

We will then have you examined by our doctors, who have great experience examining and preparing reports for petitioners in workers' compensation cases. Their reports often clash with the medical reports of the "respondent" employer. In such cases, we conference the matter with the Workers Compensation judge assigned to hear the case. Usually that conference is helpful in resolving the case. If it is not, we hold a trial to determine the extent, if any, of the permanency.

It is important to remember that workers compensation does not pay for your pain and suffering, except to the extent that they interfere with your ability to function normally. Compensation is based strictly on disability - the inability to function exactly as well as you did before the injury. There is no retainer; attorneys’ fees are set by the court. Please feel free to contact us.