In order for an insurance company to have to pay on a work injury claim in Arkansas, the injury must, among other things, arise out of and in the course of an injured worker’s employment. In other words, the work injury must be a natural and probable consequence or incident of the employment and a natural result of one of its risks; for example, a machine operator’s hand becomes stuck in the machine she’s operating. An idiopathic injury is one whose cause is personal in nature or peculiar to the worker; for example, an office worker is walking back to his desk when his knee suddenly gives out and he falls to the carpet. The knee buckling could have occurred anywhere; the employee just happened to be at work when it did. Because an idiopathic injury is not related to the employment, it is generally not compensable unless the conditions of employment contribute to the risk by placing the worker in a position which increases the dangerous effect of the injury; for example, an employee walking on a catwalk suddenly suffers a seizure, causing her to fall over the guard rail onto the concrete below.
Insurance companies love to try to defeat valid workers’ compensation claims by saying that they’re idiopathic and that the injury could have happened anywhere. We often see these folks spouting the idiopathic injury case law to injured workers, in an attempt to intimidate and confuse them into believing that they have no claim. If they’re saying that your work injury is idiopathic, give us a call to discuss your options, any time. When insurance companies make these idiopathic injury arguments, they are sometimes very, very wrong.
Neal L. Hart, Attorney at Law
We hear this question from injured workers all the time, and the correct answer is “probably not.” Under the Arkansas Workers’ Compensation Act, employers have a duty to return an injured employee to work if suitable employment is available within the employee’s physical and mental limitations. Employers often either ignore this duty completely, or they provide “suitable employment” to an injured worker temporarily, and then suddenly (and without good reason) take the job away. This may very well violate State Law, and it could also lead to the employer and its insurance company owing an injured worker a substantial amount of additional workers’ compensation benefits in a claim.
Getting the insurance company to admit it’s wrong and pay this additional cash is, unfortunately, a big problem for injured folks. The insurance carrier almost never voluntarily pays any additional money in this scenario, and many injured Arkansans who suspect they’ve been swindled out of a job end up simply convincing themselves that since Arkansas is an “at will” employment state, the employer can basically give or take away any job as it pleases.
The bad news for employers and the insurance folks is that Hart Law knows how important having the ability to earn a living is to working Arkansans, and we have been fighting the insurance companies over taking jobs away from our injured clients for years. In this case https://caselaw.findlaw.com/ar-court-of-appeals/1416671.html, for example, we went all the way to the Arkansas Court of Appeals to obtain additional benefits for a client who was provided with a light-duty position that was later withdrawn. His job was yanked for no good reason, and we made them pay.
If you have a claim and something about your job situation doesn’t seem quite right, it may not be. Call or e-mail us and we’d be glad to visit with you about your claim and your options, anytime.
Neal L. Hart, Attorney at Law
At Hart Law, practicing Workers’ Compensation Law is really important to us, because it’s really important to our clients. Workers’ compensation is what we do, and we work our files 7 days a week, because our clients deserve it.
When we agree to take your case, we’re not taking it hoping that you also have some other, better case for us to handle. We take your workers’ compensation case, because we really want to handle your workers’ compensation case. We value working folks, highly, and when they become our clients, we treat them like they’re a part of our family.
When we look around the Internet, it’s pretty obvious that other law firms that dabble in Workers’ Compensation Law come to our website for information, and sometimes even copy it as their own; and we’re flattered by this, frankly. It means that we’re educating the public, including other lawyers, and really doing something right. Any time we can help other firms with a workers’ compensation section learn something about the craft of handling workers’ compensation cases so that they can do their jobs better, it’s a win-win for all working Arkansans.
Keep working hard, Arkansas; but if you get injured and you can’t, we’d be honored to talk to you about how we may be able to help.
Neal L. Hart, Attorney at Law
Is that an injured worker will talk to an experienced workers’ compensation attorney right after he or she is hurt on the job.
Have questions about your work injury claim? We’re here to help, anytime.
By: Neal L. Hart, Attorney at Law
Independent medical examinations (IMEs) are very common in Arkansas workers’ compensation claims. The way it typically works is that the insurance company or one of its agents contacts the injured employee, in the middle of a claim, and says: “We’re going to set you up for a second opinion.” Most claimants don’t know a whole lot about workers’ compensation law and just want to get physically better, so they usually think seeing another doctor for free is a great idea. But is it? Insurance carriers are typically very interested in two things: 1. Getting a case closed. 2. Saving as much cash as possible while doing so. In order to better facilitate this, insurance companies often reuse the same physicians they’ve retained (and paid a bunch of money to) for IMEs in past cases; hoping that the IME doctor will once again arrive at a medical conclusion that will somehow impair an injured workers’ claim.
Under Arkansas law, an IME must be, among other things, reasonable, necessary, convenient for the claimant, and actually ‘independent.’ If a proposed IME doctor is generally well known in workers’ compensation system circles as an ‘insurance’ doctor, it would be difficult to contemplate that an IME conducted by that particular physician either would or ever could actually be ‘independent’ in nature. Unfortunately, many lawyers just go ahead and allow their clients to attend an IME scheduled by an insurance company, without putting much thought into either the IME itself or the potential damage it could ultimately do to the case. Legally resisting an independent medical examination that isn’t actually ‘independent’ could mean the difference between developing a solid case for a client, while he or she remains in a state of improving physical and mental health; and having a denied claim with medical evidence too damaging to possibly ever overcome.
Have questions about an IME? Give us a call or send us an e-mail. We’re always here to help.
Neal L. Hart, Attorney at Law
Under Arkansas Law, the insurance company in a workers’ compensation claim has the right to direct an injured employee’s initial medical care. Often times, this means that an injured worker will be sent to a “company doctor” who is familiar to both the insurance carrier and employer. If the injured worker needs a referral to a specialist, the insurance company might tell the company doctor where to send a claimant for further evaluation. Under this scenario, it may not take very long at all for a work injury claim to become so overloaded with insurance-friendly physicians that it completely sinks the entire case, before the claimant even knows what happened.
Thankfully, our Workers’ Compensation Act allows an injured worker to ask for a one-time change of physician, to a doctor he or she wants to see, at basically any point during the claim. The problem is that the insurance company may only have to pay for one office visit to the new doctor, unless the new physician provides the parties with some pretty compelling medical opinions to advance the evidence in the claim. Because of this, knowing exactly when and how to use a physician change may be extremely important to the outcome of the claim. If, for example, an uninformed claimant asks for a physician change at an unwise juncture in the case, to a doctor who thinks most folks alleging work injuries are scam artists, the physician change may have just been completely wasted, or worse.
Have questions about a physician change? Give us a call. We’re always here to help.
Neal L. Hart, Attorney at Law
AWCC Bacis Facts including Change of Physician
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