Currently, Georgia law does not prohibit your employer from terminating your employment if you file a work injury claim. However, your workers’ compensation case does not go away if you are fired.
Our experience has been that if your injury is serious enough to warrant surgery or extensive medical treatment, both your employer and the workers’ comp insurance company are going to insist on a resignation as part of your lump sum case settlement. From the employer’s perspective, a slowly healing employee constitutes a distraction to other employees and will be at higher risk for re-injury. Your employer’s insurance company wants no part of (older) workers with pre-existing conditions. They would prefer to cover a company with young, healthy, never-injured workers.
You Will Feel Betrayed and Angry by How You are Being Treated
We understand that you will feel hurt, betrayed and angry that the company you may have considered as a second family now wants you gone because you were injured – perhaps through no fault of your own. It is not a good feeling to learn that you are no longer wanted or needed.
Unfortunately, the workers’ compensation system in Georgia does not put any emphasis on returning seriously injured workers back to work. Our experience has been that a better course of action for you will be to put your efforts towards getting necessary and thorough medical care, recovering lost wage benefits from the insurance company, and settling your claim for as much money as you can. That, of course, is where Ginsberg Law can help you.
What About Minor Injuries?
Not every on-the-job injury, of course, will require surgery or extensive medical care. In minor injury cases, the workers’ comp. system ma work for you – you will get acceptable medical, rehab treatment as necessary and then you will return to work. In these cases you will most likely not lose you job and you probably don’t need an attorney to assist you.
The problem you may face, however, is this: you may not know right after your injury whether a few days rest and a pain medication prescription will be sufficient, or whether that nagging pain is something more serious. Added to this dilemma are the deadlines imposed by the workers’ compensation law. Your rights may be compromised if you don’t report your injury properly, if you fail to accurately report your symptoms to your doctor and even if you delay treatment.
The risk of inaction or taking the wrong action can result in very unfavorable consequences. This is why we encourage you to call or email our office if you have any questions at all about the workers’ compensation law in Georgia. There is no cost or obligation to speak with Jodi Ginsberg, our worker injury attorney and any communication you have with Jodi or anyone here at Ginsberg Law will remain completely private and confidential. Neither your employer nor the insurance company will know that you have spoken to an attorney unless and until you decide that it makes sense to proceed.
Jodi can be reached directly at 770-351-0801 or by email at jodiginsberglaw (at) gmail.com, or you can use the form on this page.
