If you have been injured on the job in New Jersey, the state’s workers’ compensation system provides you with some advantages, but it also comes with some limitations. One of these involves your ability to file a personal injury lawsuit against your employer.
The tradeoff
Your employer is required to carry workers’ compensation insurance. If your were injured at work, you don’t have to prove your employer was negligent or did anything wrong; you just have to show that your injury happened in the course of your employment, and your employer’s insurance carrier should provide you with benefits to pay for your medical care related to the accident. If you are out of work for an extended period because of your injury, you can also collect benefits to offset your loss of wages.
Here’s the catch: If you have collected workers’ compensation benefits after a workplace injury, you are barred from also filing a personal injury lawsuit against your employer if it involves the same injury.
Other damages
This bar against filing a lawsuit can be a problem in some cases — particularly in cases involving serious injuries — because a personal injury lawsuit can compensate an injured person for damages that are generally not covered by workers’ compensation.
Generally speaking, workers’ compensation benefits cover only your medical and rehabilitative costs and a percentage of your lost wages. That is not the case in many personal injury lawsuits. In a typical personal injury lawsuit, the injured person can seek compensation for pain and suffering and other non-economic damages.
Typically, a badly injured worker can’t wait to file a lawsuit against their employer. They need workers’ compensation benefits right away, and so they give up the possibility of collecting those additional damages.
What about a third party?
Note that we said that you are barred from filing a personal injury lawsuit against your employer. You aren’t necessarily barred from suing a third party.
For instance, let’s say you were driving from one company location to another during your work hours when you were hit by another driver. You are injured and require medical care.
Because your injury happened in the course of your employment, your employer’s workers’ compensation insurance pays for your medical care and other benefits. Because you collected those benefits, you cannot also file a lawsuit against your employer involving this accident. However, you can file a lawsuit against the driver who crashed into you.
Offset
The main advantage of this type of third party lawsuit is that it allows you to collect more compensation for more kinds of damages than you could through workers’ compensation alone. However, this does not mean you will be able to collect compensation a second time for the things that your workers’ compensation benefits paid for.
If you recover compensation through your third-party lawsuit, your employer or your employer’s insurance provider can receive credit for the benefits they already provided to you.
The exact amount the employer (or the insurer) collects depends on the specifics of the case. If the total your third-party settlement comes out to more than the amount you received in workers’ compensation benefits, your employer or insurer can collect about two-thirds of what it paid for your benefits.
That’s a significant percentage, but it still puts you ahead. If you suffered serious injuries in your work accident, a third-party lawsuit can help you maximize your compensation.