How Many Repetitive Trauma Injuries Can This Assembly Line Worker Receive Workers' Compensation Benefits For?
Lipkin and Higgins represented a 51-year-old woman who worked on an assembly line for a large corporation for 18 years. Recently she complained of pain in her hands and was eventually diagnosed with Carpal Tunnel Syndrome. We filed a Workers' Compensation Claim and successfully recovered medical, tempormy total disability, and permanency benefits for this condition, ending the claim.
Shortly afterwards, our client complained that her pain also effected her shoulder. We recommended that she return to her orthopedic surgeon for evaluation. The doctor diagnosed a
serious shoulder injury which he stated was also caused by the repetitive demands of her job. This treatment included several pain injections and subsequently, surgery. We then filed a
second Workers' Compensation claim alleging that the repetitive trauma of working on the production line also caused her shoulder injury. Our client missed several months of work while undergoing treatment. Her surgeon stated that she could return to work but not at her former assembly line job. Our client had worked nearly her entire adult life as an assembly line worker. She had limited transferable job skills. She also had limitations in her education and English speaking skills. As her surgeon had authorized her to return to work the case issue became whether she was employable. To help learn this we hired a Vocational Counselor to find her a job if possible. There were no constraints to the type of job the counselor was to find. After working with our client for several months however, the counselor concluded that she was unlikely to reenter the job force at a pay rate near her hourly rate when she was an assembly line worker. Based upon the above information, we were able to successfully negotiate the resolution of our client's second Workers' Compensation Claim for $200,000.00, plus an agreement that the company would continue to pay our client's future medical bills.
Successful resolution: $200,000.00 plus open medical.
