What to do After an Injury at Work: Notice, Communication and Treatment Are Important to Your Legal and Medical Health

Many times employees’ families ask after a tragic loss of life which occurs in the workplace or after a very serious accident which results in debilitating injuries to an employee, what should we do, what should we have done after the accident occurred?  Even more frequently the same questions are asked after a serious but non-fatal or less permanently debilitating accident.  The answers are that the employer should be notified immediately, in the case of a death or a seriously debilitating injury, OSHA and the state Department of Public Safety should be notified as well as the local building inspector.  In the City of Boston, the Department of Inspectional Services should be notified.  All of these public entities will coordinate, and there will be an investigation, which ultimately will make findings of fact and, in the case of OSHA, for example, issue fines if there was a violation of OSHA regulations. Those fines can be against the employer and others at the site.  This provides a roadmap ultimately for where an employee’s workers’ compensation and civil courtroom rights exist.

While these public entities will not normally be investigating an accident with less serious injuries, the same kind of legwork can be done on an employee’s behalf by your attorney and your attorney’s investigator.

In addition, in all cases, and particularly in the case of what seems to be a less serious injury at work, the employer should be notified.  Workers’ compensation is triggered by the date of the accident and by notice.  Many times employees try to shake off an injury in order to stay on the job and keep working and not make waves.  They need to know that the employer and the workers’ compensation insurer, despite what they say or seemingly convey, want to know about these accidents so that they can properly adjust the claim and the circumstances and their coverages.  Many times, particularly with back or neck strain or an injury that does not seem to be one that will be long-term, the circumstances of how it occurred become lost in the shuffle of time. A notice to the foreman and a handwritten note to the front office or human resources department are critical to establishing your rights to workers’ compensation and to preserve rights to a successful accident case in court in addition to workers’ compensation.  The employer is entitled to do an investigation, and to do so it needs to have notice.  The injured worker is entitled to compensation and to do an investigation, and both sides to the equation should be on the same page in wanting notice.

The other thing that should be done is that your injuries should be documented, and the history of what happened should be documented medically.  If you are injured enough to decide that you should stay out of work or that you know you should stay out of work even if you struggle through work in pain, you should contact your primary care physician at the least.  You really should get to an emergency room or another healthcare provider in order to document the fact of an accident or of an injury at work and the nature and extent of actual injury.  Notice and communication, goes a long way towards making any possible workers’ compensation claim go smoothly.  Most employee handbooks instruct, and most employers instruct, an employee to report an accident or injury, and the employer’s wishes should be accommodated.  For more information on accidents in Massachusetts and injuries at work, see www.flynnlawfirm.com.