Why Giving A Notice Of Injury Is So Important
Business Law

Why Giving A Notice Of Injury Is So Important

October 27, 2022

Getting compensated for an injury at work requires the worker and the company to follow a set of guidelines. In many cases, though, the employee does not give a notice of injury promptly, which ends up needlessly complicating things. Insurance companies are always looking for reasons to deny claims, with a delay in sending the notice of injury being a plausible reason for doing so.

Pressure To Not Report

Some employees feel pressure to not report injuries at work because they deem the injury to be minor. This happens a lot in physically demanding jobs where an employee might feel like minor bumps and bruises are no big deal as they are part of the job. Because they happen a lot, they may not deem it necessary to report them.

Their reluctance to report each of these incidents can come back to hurt them, especially if one of those bumps and bruises turns out to be a lot more serious than they originally thought.

Failure Of A Claim

Worker’s compensation law requires that any injured employee gives their employer notice of any injuries sustained on the job. The employer then has to investigate the report within a set period, typically 21 days.

Compensation for work-related injuries is calculated from the time of reporting, with failure to provide the notice of the injury within a given period, varying depending on the location, can result in the failure of the claim.

Complicating Matters

What happens after someone gets injured and before giving notice of injury complicates matters a lot. Sometimes, people do not notice they are injured, or they may be new to the company and may not want to bring unwanted attention to themselves by claiming compensation within a few months of being on the job.

In some cases, the employee may decide to pursue a short-term disability policy instead of pursuing workers comp. All of these are reasonable actions, especially for someone who may not fully understand the consequences of these actions, but they make things a lot harder.

“The Injury Did Not Happen At Work”

A common tactic that insurance and defense attorneys use is saying the injury did not happen at work even in cases you know it did. This argument cannot work if you provide prompt notice of injury to your employee as soon as the injury happens.

It may be difficult to argue the opposite by yourself but hiring a workers’ compensation attorney can help you prove your case and get the compensation you deserve. If you have joined a union, you may be able to get help from the attorney representing people in the union or the union itself. Some lawyers, for example, represent workers from dozens of unions. You can find more information about labor union attorneys on this website.

Although it may not seem like a big deal and you may have valid reasons for not doing it, you should always provide your employee with a notice of injury when you get injured at work. It will make your work as well as the work of your attorney easier if you can prove an injury happened at work by having the documentation to prove it.

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