If you sue your employer for negligence, you may be able to recover a significant amount of money in damages. Instead of suing your employer, which costs both employers and employees a lot of time and money, the workers' compensation system was developed to promptly compensate employees who are injured and save employers from having to pay vast sums of money in damages to injured employees. Workers' compensation is a system designed to compensate you if you are injured or become ill at work. It acts in place of a lawsuit against your employer. Each state has its own workers' compensation system.
Every system is a little different, but there are similarities.
To get the money to pay benefits, employers buy workers' comp insurance, required by most states. Federal employees have a separate workers' comp system, which is similar to most state plans. Work with an experienced lawyer in your state.