Most Common Work Injuries in Florida: Protecting Your Rights with a Work Injury Lawyer

With its thriving job market and diverse industries, Florida offers countless employment opportunities to its residents. However, as the workforce grows, so does the risk of workplace injuries. Whether you're in construction, healthcare, retail, or any other field, accidents can happen, leaving you with injuries that can disrupt your life. In such cases, it's crucial to understand Florida's most common work injuries and how a work injury lawyer can protect your rights.

1. Slip and Fall Accidents

Slip and fall accidents are one of the most prevalent workplace injuries in Florida. They can occur in various industries, from restaurants to construction sites. Florida's climate often leads to wet surfaces, making slipping and sustaining injuries easier for employees. Employers are responsible for maintaining safe working conditions and can be held liable for slip and fall accidents caused by negligence.

2. Strains and Sprains

Overexertion and repetitive motion can lead to strains and sprains, affecting muscles, tendons, and ligaments. Commonly found in physically demanding jobs such as construction, agriculture, and manufacturing, these injuries can be debilitating. Workers may require medical treatment and time off work for recovery, during which a work injury lawyer can help them seek compensation.

3. Falls from Heights

Florida's construction industry is booming, with numerous high-rise buildings and structures under development. Workers at construction sites are at risk of falling from heights, leading to severe injuries or even fatalities. Employers must adhere to strict safety regulations to prevent such accidents. A work injury lawyer can help injured workers navigate workers' compensation claims or personal injury lawsuits.

4. Vehicle Accidents

Vehicle accidents are a common concern for those working in transportation and logistics. Whether it's a truck collision, a forklift accident, or any other type of vehicular incident, these accidents can result in significant injuries. Seeking legal counsel from a work injury lawyer is essential to determine liability and secure compensation for medical expenses and lost wages.

5. Electrical Accidents

Electrical accidents are a severe threat in the construction, manufacturing, and utilities industries. Workers can be exposed to electrical shocks or arc flashes, leading to burns, organ damage, or even fatalities. Employers must provide proper training and safety equipment to mitigate these risks. In cases of negligence, a work injury lawyer can help victims pursue legal action.

6. Machinery and Equipment Accidents

Many industries rely on heavy machinery and equipment to carry out their operations. Malfunctioning or improperly maintained machines can lead to serious injuries, including amputations and crush injuries. Employers are obligated to ensure equipment safety and provide adequate training. If negligence is involved, a work injury lawyer can assist victims in seeking compensation.

7. Toxic Chemical Exposure

Certain workplaces, such as chemical plants, laboratories, and manufacturing facilities, expose employees to hazardous chemicals. Prolonged exposure can lead to respiratory problems, skin disorders, and long-term health issues. Employers must provide safety measures, including proper ventilation and protective gear. A work injury lawyer can help workers seek compensation if safety standards are violated.

8. Workplace Violence

While not as common as other types of work injuries, workplace violence is a growing concern. Employees in various industries may face threats or violence from coworkers, clients, or customers. Employers should have policies in place to address and prevent such incidents. Victims of workplace violence may require legal assistance from a work injury lawyer to pursue justice.

9. Occupational Illnesses

Occupational illnesses can develop gradually, often due to exposure to harmful substances over time. These can include conditions like mesothelioma from asbestos exposure, black lung disease from coal mining, or respiratory problems from exposure to dust and fumes. Workers with occupational illnesses may be entitled to compensation, and a work injury lawyer can help them navigate the complex process.

Work injuries can be physically, emotionally, and financially devastating. If you've been injured at your workplace in Florida, it's crucial to understand your rights and options. A work injury lawyer can be your advocate, helping you seek compensation for medical bills, lost wages, and other damages. By recognizing the most common work injuries in Florida and taking proactive steps to protect yourself, you can ensure a safer and more secure work environment for yourself and your fellow employees. Don't hesitate to seek legal counsel to safeguard your rights and well-being.

Season Farm Help and Workers Compensation: Here’s what you should know

Reports from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reveal that the fatality rate among farmers, agricultural managers, and ranchers was 24 persons per 100,000 full-time equivalent employees. This is a total of 5,147 fatal occupation injuries in a year (2017). Read on to know more about states that require, and those don’t require farmworkers' compensation.
You have probably heard that farming is one of the dangerous occupations you can undertake. Yet, very few states across the country require that seasonal farmworkers be provided with workers’ compensation, the most basic of insurance.

Farm workers compensation

As of August 2019, only 13 states required organizations to provide workers’ insurance for their agricultural employees. These states include Montana, New Jersey, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, California, Idaho, Minnesota, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Oregon, Ohio, and Massachusetts. This form of insurance is also required in Puerto Rico, the District of Columbia, and the US Virgin Islands.

There are 15 states that don’t require the provision of workers’ compensation insurance for seasonal, migrant, or farm workers. These states include Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas, Indiana, Kentucky, Kansas, Alabama, Georgia, North Dakota, Delaware, Arkansas, Missouri, Tennessee, Nevada, and Mississippi. 

In other states, workers’ compensation coverage is limited to people employed in specialty jobs, full-time workers, those working in large farms, or workers limited to a number of work of hours. For employers who hire temporary migrant workers under the H-2A, a temporary agricultural program must provide workers’ compensation insurance or its equivalents to their employees.

Did you know?

In the early 1900s, there was a considerable level of discussions and lawyering regarding the requirement of workers compensation insurance for injured or sick workers. Some laws were passed and subsequently declared constitutional in some states. The initial amendments happened in Wisconsin (1911), and nine more states followed within the same year.

Mississippi was the last to enact similar laws in 1948. Much of the increased need to implement workers’ compensation laws were prompted by the need for a proper response following a series of disasters in some states.

Farm employer’s liability

This section of the workers’ compensation insurance makes it clear that the insurer will respond when the insured is ‘legally required to pay as damages due to bodily harm to which the policy applies.” The injuries must have caused by an event sustained by the worker and should arise in the course of the worker’s official duties. That means the worker must have been handling their duties when they got injured.

There are specific exclusions that you should know. For instance, the worker may not seek exemplary or punitive damages. Therefore, it’s best to consult with an experienced lawyer if you are a farmworker, and you intend to pursue workers’ compensation benefits.

Medical payments

According to this separate insurance agreement, the insurance company will pay ‘all reasonable healthcare expenses to which the workers’ compensation coverage applies’ for injuries to a farmworker who sustains injuries due to accidents in the workplace. As mentioned earlier, the injuries should arise out of and in the worker’s course of employment.

Regardless of who was at fault, the injured worker is entitled to reasonable compensation for medical expenses within three years of the date of the event that caused the injuries.

Wrap up

Some states require farmworkers to carry workers’ compensation insurance, others don’t. If you provide seasonal help to farmers and agricultural institutions, try to find out if your employer is required by the law to have workers’ compensation insurance. It’s also wise to consult with an attorney if you intend to seek workers’ compensation.

Negligence in a Florida Personal Injury Case

Negligence in a Personal Injury Case

When it comes to a majority of injury and accident cases, who is at fault depends on the legal term “negligence.” While negligence may seem obvious at first, there are several things to take into consideration.

 What Does a Negligence Claim Include?

 Negligence claims can be tricky to prove. There are four basic elements of any negligence claim:

 1. Duty of Care

 Duty of care refers to the obligation that people have to avoid injuring another person. People are also supposed to avoid putting others in a position where they can be injured. Just about everyone has some amount of duty of care towards others. However, when it comes to accident cases, you need a lawyer to help determine who is owed the highest care of duty and how broad that duty is.

 Figuring out duty of care can be difficult. There aren’t any hard-and-fast laws that say how a person should behave. For example, brick-and-mortar stores have a duty of care toward customers. However, there aren’t always specific guidelines to say exactly what this duty of care entails. Even if there are guidelines, they’re often not specific enough. For example, stores should make sure that there are no hazards outside for customers who are walking into their store. However, how often are the store owners supposed to check that the exterior of the store is safe? If they check on a specific schedule but the exterior becomes unsafe in between checks, is this considered negligence? Since there’s no specific answer, only a professional will be able to determine if a court would agree that negligence occurred.

 2. Breach of Duty

 The first step in an injury or accident case is to determine the duty of care. Then, the breach of duty - if there was one - has to be determined. Did the person who owed the care of duty actually provide it? If they didn’t, the law may call their behavior and acts negligent. Put simply, if the person who owed the duty of care breached that duty by either allowing or creating a dangerous situation, they may have been negligent.

 Most of the time, it’s fairly easy to determine whether or not the duty of care was breached. For example, if a landlord doesn’t repair a railing for several months, than they did not adhere to their duty of care. If there are witnesses or proof to show that the railing was dangerous for several weeks or months, the jury is likely to believe that this is true.

 However, there are circumstances when determine the breach of duty can be trickier. For example, even if a person who got into a car accident wasn’t speeding, they may still have breached their duty of care. In dangerous conditions, drivers are expected to drive slower than normal in order to keep themselves and other drivers safe. If the driver did not slow down to a speed that’s under the speed limit even though there were icy or slippery conditions, they may still be in breach of duty even though they weren’t actually speeding.

 3. Causation

 Once the duty of care and the breach of duty has been determined, there’s something else to consider: if that breach of duty is what actually caused the injury or accident. Even if the negligent person admits that they were negligent, they may still argue that this wasn’t the problem in the specific accident. Even if the negligence was part of the cause of the accident, if it wasn’t the sole cause, they may not be held responsible.

 This can be a bit tricky to understand. After all, if the person was negligent, shouldn’t they be held responsible? Not necessarily. Let’s say you’re driving and a driver opposite you makes a turn without using their turn signal. As a result, you got into an accident with the person who was turning. While the other person was negligent, they may be able to say that you didn’t stop at the “Stop” sign or that you didn’t wait until the intersection was clear before you drove through it. While their actions were part of the problem, the fact that you went through a “Stop” sign was the main problem.

 4. Damages

 When used in legal terms, the word “damages” is the emotional injuries, physical injuries, lost income and property damage of the person who suffers from the accident. When it’s time to negotiate a settlement, the damages (or the amount of money you want as compensation) is the main point that is discussed.

 It’s important to note that when you speak with your insurance company about the accident, you won’t likely have to use these legal terms. Instead, you and the insurance agent will speak in plain language about your case. You may not even need to prove who was at fault, especially if what or who caused the accident is highly obvious.

 Even if the insurance company is able to figure out who caused the accident, you may still need to figure out how much compensation you deserve. This is when it’s especially important to hire a lawyer experienced in negligence and accident cases.

Will Unemployment Benefits Affect My Social Security Benefits?

Social Security is one of the great pillars of the U.S. economy. Without it, many retired and disabled Americans would find it difficult to make ends meet. If you are currently unemployed and receiving unemployment benefits—or you are likely to in the future—you might be wondering how it will affect your social security benefits.

Will your unemployment benefits affect your social security benefits? The short answer is “no”. Social Security does not consider your unemployment benefits as earnings. Unemployment benefits are not considered as salary and, therefore, not counted.

The clear implication of this is that any type of Social Security benefits will not be affected by your unemployment benefits. However, if you are receiving Social Security benefits, it may reduce your unemployment benefits.

Social Security Benefits

As you may already know, Social Security is a federal program of social insurance and benefits instituted in 1935 as a part of the New Deal. It’s one of the largest government programs, not only in the U.S, but around the world. Social Security pays out hundreds of billions of dollars to beneficiaries each year. The benefits you can receive under this program include retirement income, disability income, Medicare and Medicaid, and death and survivorship benefits.

Based on the year of your birth, you may be eligible for retirement benefits between the ages of 62 and 67. The amount you can receive will be based on the average wages you have earned over your lifetime, with a maximum calculable amount of $102,000 (as of 2008). Your spouse will also be eligible to receive Social Security benefits, even if he or she has a limited or non-existent work history.

To be eligible to receive Social Security benefits, you must make your contribution to the system through payroll taxes. In order to be able to draw retirement or disability benefits, you must earn the minimum “work credits” set by the Social Security. A work credit is earned by making a specific amount of income and paying Social Security taxes on that income. Four is the maximum credits you can earn in a year, and the number of credits required for retirement eligibility is 40.

Unemployment benefits

Unemployment benefits, on the other hand, are the benefits given to the unemployed for sustenance until then can find employment. In order to collect unemployment benefits, you will be required to file an application stating why you are jobless, listing any other sources of income you may have, and revealing any assets you can use to draw an income.

To receive unemployment benefits, you must provide proof that you are currently searching for a job and verify that you are able and willing to work.

You will be disqualified from collecting unemployment benefits under the following conditions:

• You have quit your job without a good reason
• You have resigned because of illness (since you may be eligible for disability benefits)
• You have quit your job to get married
• You are involved in a labor dispute
• You are self-employed
• You are attending school

As stated earlier, your unemployment benefits, if you are receiving any, will not affect your Social Security benefits. But your Social Security benefits may reduce your unemployment benefits. The amount reduced differs from state to state because each state has its own Social Security offset laws.

For example, if your state’s offset law requires unemployment benefits to be reduced by half of the Social Security benefit and if your Social Security benefit is $1,200, then your unemployment benefit will be reduced by $600. The good news is that while most states have offset laws, only a few states actually implement them.

Unemployment does not harm or help Social Security since any unemployment benefits you receive are not counted as income. However, being unemployed for a long period of time will have some negative effects on your Social Security because of lower income during the productive years of your life, which means lower contribution to the Social Security system, which translates into lower amounts in Social Security benefits when you retire.

If you have any other questions about Social Security benefits or unemployment, it is in your best interest to consult with an social security attorney experienced in this area. They will be able to guide you through the application process, and determine what you should do in your situation.

Obtaining Longshore Worker's Compensation Benefits?

Scott J. Sternberg & Associates, P.A. focuses on obtaining comprehensive Workers compensation benefits to injured longshore, Call us Today at 561-687-5660.
Read more http://www.sternberglawoffice.com/practice-areas/workers-compensation-overview/

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If you are a lawyer or have a law firm, business listing sites can help you. Find the FREE business listing sites for lawyers below:

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15.	www.lexisnexis.com	7
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29.	lawyers.justia.com	7

Be Careful! Work at Site

At Scott J. Sternberg and Associates, our Fort Lauderdale workers compensation attorney deliver straightforward legal service for you after workplace injury.
For more information visit online at http://www.sternberglawoffice.com/practice-areas/workers-compensation-overview/