This is WLBT Law Call. Welcome to Law Call, everyone. We've got the answers to your legal questions and here's what's coming up tonight. Tonight we will be talking about on-the-job injuries, including workers' compensation and a little bit on Jones Act and Longshore claims. If you've been hurt on the job and aren't sure what to do, stay tuned. And personal injury attorney, rock, you know what? I say rock, I'm so used to saying rock and tea. Here in the comforts here, but rock, you must be talking about me somewhere. A Morgan and Morgan's here. Welcome back. Glad to have you here. Thank you. Good to see you again. And also joining us is worker compensation attorney, Jonathan Barlow. And welcome to the program, Jonathan. Tell us a little bit about you all the way from the coast. I know that. That's right. We have a farm up here in Jackson as well, with Barlow and golf. I'm down on the coast. I run the coast office. We do mainly workers' longshore, have one or two Jones Act claims, trying to get more of those obviously, and some federal criminal defense. And you have to explain that with Jones Act and Longshore. I'm not sure what I think. Well, if I wrote a book about that, I'd have a lot more money than... Jones Act and Longshore dance the same under the same umbrella. Jones Act applies to semen that are hurt while in the course of their business. Longshore workers are traditionally maritime workers that are hurt while they're working on some kind of mess, so whether they're building it, repairing it, bringing it out at certain times will qualify. So it gets kind of dicey on, is it Jones Act or not? Okay. We look forward to hearing more about that this evening. And Harry, we've been on a program before. Just introduce yourself, really quickly, for people. We just don't want to show everybody at home, no it's Harry. Well, Harry McCumber, I'm a partner at Morgan Morgan here in Jackson. We do a wide variety of cases, but I primarily do premises liability work. And last time I saw this gentleman here, we were in court. Tell me about it. On the coast. I don't want to move, we live it. Yes, I gave him my heads up. I tried to help him. But yeah, so he does a lot. He's always in court. I'm in court. We're running to each other, so. All right, okay, well, we're going to start on. And we've won with the program here and kick things off for that first phone call for the night. And welcome to Law Hall on the line holding. It's Ted. What's your question this evening, Ted? I have been required for years, but I got her on the job. And they still type in my medical. But they've been wanting me to settle. And I felt it didn't give me a figure. And they said, no, I would have to give them one. How does that work? Thank you so much for calling. You're advice. We didn't want to go in here. That's a wonderful question as all of them are. So it sounds like Ted has already settled his indemnity benefits. So you are entitled to three benefits under a worker's compensation. You are an indemnity benefits, medical benefits, and you have death benefits, and thankfully, Ted did not die, so he's not getting that. So if he settled his indemnity benefits, the only thing that's left is his medical care. But what's going on is that the insurance company now wants to get Ted off of their books. He's costing some money over the years. So what Ted really could do, he probably needs an attorney to do this, but Ted could go in, and he could ask the insurance company for a cost projection of what they're going to pay for the future. What medical treatment is still on the table according to the doctors, how long is that treatment going to last, and what's already been done. And you could take those numbers that have already been done, and you could take that future medical care, and you could evaluate it out under our equations to figure out what's the value of the rest of Ted's life essentially. It's a sad analysis, but it is what it is. So that's the best way you can do that on a medical's only claim. Let's figure out what's left to do, how much is that going to cost under the fee schedule, and send out a settlement demand. Okay, and I bet there's somebody out there probably listening and taking both that advice. Would you, the tips that you just gave Ted, would you suggest someone try this on their own, or they definitely probably won a higher in a journey? I hate to be a lawyer, and I'll say it depends, but I would always say that you should get an attorney for a workers' comp plan. I did not think that going into this job, you know, I have not always done workers' comp. I've done a lot of different types of law, but an insurance carrier's job is to get you off of their books. And they might treat you right, they might do the right thing, but the first chance that they can get to get that hook a liability out there, I'm out, that's what they're going to do. So you definitely need an attorney to make sure not only that they're doing what they're supposed to, but also that they're not doing something they should. Now can Ted stick it out, can he keep going? Yeah, he's the right guy. You can stay on the medical side of the workers' comp claim as long as you want to, but the longer it goes on, what the insurance carrier's banking on is that they can find a way to get you off of their books. They can send you to EME physicians to try and say things aren't causally related. They can start to contest all of your medical treatment where you need to follow necessary motions to compel that treatment. And they can just make it difficult to end you to the point where you say, I don't want to be on comp anymore, and they will greatly devalue what your claim is probably worth. John, I had a question for you. I only deal with workers comp. At least in my arena, if there's a, what's called a third party claim, would you tell the viewers how workers comp is different though in terms of attorneys fees or what you can recover for? So workers' compensation law is all housed under the Workers' Comp Act. Workers' Compensation law says that we only get 25% of our fees, whether that's through settlement or a verdict. Now what's important, a distinction between us, we don't have a jury trial. We have the commission that houses eight administrative law judges will appear before them, and that judge will make a determination if they think they need to go above a rating. They, I'd have never seen them go under a rating. I think you're mainly getting 33% on your fees, probably higher if you have to take up an appeal. On the third party aspect, if you're at work and let's say one of your co-employees goes through and they do something that causes you to sustain an injury, well that's just a pure workers comp claim and you're confined to those three things. And what's important about what's important about workers comp unlike you is that we don't have pain and suffering. That can create tremendous damages for an insurance carrier. For us carriers behave the way they do because they don't have those pain and suffering consideration. So that's one of the more unfavorable points of law. One of the more positives for us is that we don't have a negligent standard like you do. You can be completely negligent at work and if you're doing the job that you're assigned to do and it's in the course and scope of your employment, you're okay. You're covered. You're okay. So it's a trade-off. You know they say workers comp is for the worker but it's kind of really for the employer don't you think? I think it's definitely for the employer. So when they change the laws they crafted it in a way to say, you know, we have a fair trade-off. We won't consider your negligence and we won't consider the employer's negligence but you don't get pain and suffering. I'd much rather have the option of pain and suffering than to care if my client was negligent or not. But the judge figures that out. Good point. Good point. Good point, Bear. All right, it's time for us to take our first break. We will be right back with more illegal questions about getting hurt while on the job. Stay tuned. Music