If you are injured on the job, you may be entitled to worker’s compensation benefits. Worker’s compensation pays the medical bills and lost wages of individuals injured or killed while in the course of their employment. Additionally, a worker’s compensation claim may be filed to obtain a sum of money to compensate you for your injuries. It is not necessary to prove that your employer was at fault for the accident. Thus, worker’s compensation is administered under a no fault system. The trade off for receiving benefits without having to prove negligence is that you cannot sue your employer civilly for compensation for your pain and suffering.

 

However, you still may be able to sue a third party for those injuries while maintaining a worker’s compensation claim against your employer. For example, if you are injured on a construction site because you have fallen off of a scaffold, you may be able to sue the scaffold manufacturer for a defective scaffold while maintaining a worker’s compensation claim against the contractor that employed you. However, if you are successful against the scaffold manufacturer, any funds that were paid to you by way of a worker’s compensation claim may be deducted from your recovery against the scaffold manufacturer and reimbursed to your employer’s insurance carrier. In fact, your employer’s insurance carrier has what is called a worker’s compensation lien.

 

This does not mean that you should not consider suing a third party for a work place injury. Many times, you will be able to recover much more by way of a civil suit against a third party then what you would recover by way of a worker’s compensation claim.