7 steps to take if you lose your personal injury claim
5 min readAccidents and the injuries that result from them are not always an unlucky chance occurrence. In many cases, the accident will be someone else’s fault. When an individual is to blame for your injuries, then they should have to cover your lost income and doctor’s costs. Unfortunately for many though, there is a vast and complex section of the law code that covers such accidents, resulting injuries, and the decision of who was to blame.
This explains how you can lose a personal injury case, even when your attorney felt confident enough in the outcome to accept it on a purely contingency basis. You should know that if you lose this case, then you will not be entitled to any form of compensation. It does not matter how severely you were injured. When the individual you are suing was not found liable for this accident and your injuries, the case is lost. The bad news is that no one is paying you any financial damages. The good news is that you will not have to pay your attorney fees either.
In this case, you may find yourself without a backup plan. There are some things you can do to ensure that you still have income coming in and a job to return to when you lose your big personal injury claim and case though. In this article, we look at seven steps you should take immediately if you do lose the personal injury lawsuit you filed for your injuries.
- File For Social Security Disability
An injured person like yourself still needs income to cover your many bills. Depending on how injured you are, it may be that you will never return to work. Whether for short term or long term disability issues, you should apply for Social Security Disability as soon as possible.
If they approve you, then you will receive a level of benefits commiserate with the income you lost. They base your payout on the amount of money you put into the system through your past earnings. Unfortunately, just applying will not guarantee that your claim is accepted.
Your chances of getting short term disability are significantly greater if you reside in California, Hawaii, New Jersey, New York, or Rhode Island. Each of these state jurisdictions established their own statewide temporary disability insurance plans. These can save your when you are injured with a prognosis to return to work. While all of the state programs are different from one another, the programs will offer you at least partial wages replacement for a period of six to 12 months.
- Check With Your Employer About Any Private Disability Insurance Coverage
If you were injured on the job, you should ask your employer’s human resources staff if they had paid for a long term or short term disability insurance policy. Such privately based insurance covers from 50 percent up to 80 percent of your monthly gross salary until you are working again. There are time limitations to some of these ERISA claims and they take time to establish, so you should work on filing this claim immediately if you do have the coverage.
- File for Workers Compensation
If you were injured on the job, then you should have already filed a worker’s compensation claim. If you have not already done so, do not waste any more time. You should have reported the injury to your supervisor, preferably in writing. The time to file this claim is limited, so do not delay, and go file today if you have not already taken care of this.
Some states have short statute of limitations on filing these claims. There is no good reason to lose out on legal rights that can amount to a significant weekly income just because you missed the window to apply.
- Seek Federal Assistance with Your Mortgage
If you are in danger of getting badly behind on your mortgage payments now that your claim was defeated in court, you should not wait until you fall behind on your house payment to take effective action. Your mortgage is critically important.
The Federal government has made provision for cases like these where you can no longer keep up with your mortgage. They offer their loan modification programs that can help you to reduce the payments each month to a level you can afford. You might also contact your mortgage lender personally to ask them about their Home Affordable Modification Program. The bank would rather modify your mortgage than have you default on it over an injury stopping you from working.
- Ask Your Employer About Accommodating Your Injury
After you have worked for more than a year at a company that counts more than 50 employees, you have rights that will help to protect your job under federal laws. These are called the Family Medical Leave Act. They guarantee your employer will hold your job for at least 12 weeks of leave from work each year. This will not pay your salary, but at least while you are at home recovering, you will know that you have a job to return to after you get better.
Maybe you still want to work but need some help with the arrangements until you heal. Any company that has over 15 employees is required by the federal statutes to accommodate your injury so that you are able to continue working and earning a paycheck. They may be required to provide you with additional time off, vary your working hours, or offer you special equipment to help you work in injured condition. Many employers will consider letting you work from home while you are injured as well.
- Use Your Vacation and Sick Days to Provide Some Income While You Can Not Work
If you are fortunate enough to have saved up your sick, vacation, and personal leave days, then now may be the best time to use them. This will not only help hold your job for your eventual return, but it will keep an income stream going for you (until your days are used up at least). In some cases this may amount to even months of income for you, which may be enough time for you to heal up and recover sufficiently to get back to work.
- Ask Your Company For A Leave of Absence
In the end, you will likely use up your saved vacation and sick days. If the firm you work for is smaller than 50 people, this is the time to ask your supervisor nicely for a leave of absence. It will not pay the bills, but keeping your job until you recover and can return might salvage your finances and future.
If your personal injury case is still in doubt and not yet decided, or if you need to file such a case today, then you can contact the Personal Injury Lawyers in Brisbane to help you.
