Diamondhead Spinal Cord Injury Workers Comp Lawyer

If you need a Diamondhead spinal cord injury workers comp lawyer, you are not dealing with an ordinary claim, and the insurance company knows it the moment the incident report crosses the adjuster’s desk. A catastrophic spinal cord injury can mean a lifetime of medical care, permanent loss of function, and permanent total disability, and every one of those words means real money the insurance company would rather never pay. A television lawyer running ads out of Gulfport or New Orleans has never stood before an Administrative Judge in Hancock County Circuit Court arguing a permanent total disability claim of this size, and the insurance company’s defense team knows exactly who has and who has not.

Mississippi Workers Comp Law And What A Catastrophic Spinal Cord Claim Actually Requires

Every Diamondhead worker hurt on the job is entitled to medical treatment and wage loss benefits under Mississippi workers comp law regardless of fault, so long as the injury arose out of and in the course of employment. A spinal cord injury severe enough to leave you unable to work in any reasonably available occupation supports Permanent Total Disability, the highest category of wage loss benefit Mississippi law provides. Reaching that determination requires maximum medical recovery, the actual Mississippi statutory term for what most people call MMI, and Miss. Code Ann. Section 71-3-7(3)(a) makes clear that any apportionment argument for a pre-existing condition cannot even be raised until that point is reached. Section 71-3-7(3)(b) is just as important on a catastrophic claim, the insurance company does not get to decide when you have reached maximum medical recovery, or what percentage of your disability it wants to blame on something that happened before the injury. Only the Administrative Judge decides that, subject to review by the full Commission, and on a case this size the insurance company will fight that determination as hard and as long as it can.

Why A Spinal Cord Injury Claim Is A Different Fight Than An Ordinary Claim

An ordinary workers comp claim ends when you recover and go back to work. A spinal cord injury claim does not have that ending available, and the insurance company’s entire financial calculation changes once permanent total disability becomes a real possibility. Instead of one adjuster processing one file, a catastrophic claim like this brings in a nurse case manager assigned to monitor your treatment, a reserve committee setting aside a large sum internally the moment the injury is reported, and a defense strategy built specifically around minimizing a permanent total disability finding. The nurse case manager who calls sounding helpful and offering to coordinate your care is working for the insurance company, not for you, and every recommendation she makes gets reported back to the same adjuster deciding how hard to fight your claim.

The Independent Medical Exam becomes the single most important battleground on a spinal cord injury claim, because a permanent total disability finding depends heavily on medical opinion, and the insurance company selects and pays the doctor who examines you for its side. That doctor’s opinion, more often than not, conveniently finds some residual capacity to work in a limited role, a finding that can knock a genuinely catastrophic claim down from permanent total disability to a much smaller permanent partial disability number. Surveillance follows the same pattern on a larger scale, since the financial stakes on a catastrophic claim justify a much more sustained surveillance effort than an ordinary claim would ever receive.

Where Diamondhead’s Most Serious Spinal Cord Injuries Happen

A fall from a roof or scaffold on one of the construction and remodeling job sites that have never really stopped in Diamondhead since the community was first platted out of Hancock County forest is one of the most common sources of a severe spinal cord injury in this workforce. Heavy equipment operation and vehicle related incidents connected to contractor and support positions at NASA’s Stennis Space Center and the industrial operations at the nearby Port Bienville Industrial Park in Hancock County carry the same catastrophic risk, since a crush injury or a fall from height involving heavy machinery routinely produces exactly this kind of permanent injury. Golf course grounds crews and maintenance staff at The Club at Diamondhead operating mowing and utility equipment for hours at a stretch face a lower frequency but real risk of the same catastrophic outcome when equipment malfunctions or rolls. Whatever the job, a spinal cord injury this severe changes the entire financial calculation on both sides of the claim, and the insurance company knows that better than you do on the day it happens.

Benefits Available For A Diamondhead Spinal Cord Injury Claim

Medical benefits on a catastrophic spinal cord claim are not a single course of treatment, they are a lifetime obligation that can include surgery, rehabilitation, durable medical equipment, home modifications, and attendant care depending on the severity of the injury. Temporary Total Disability pays a portion of your average weekly wage while you are completely unable to work and have not yet reached maximum medical recovery, and Permanent Total Disability, where the injury leaves you unable to work in any reasonably available occupation, is the category most relevant to a genuinely catastrophic spinal cord injury. Where the injury proves fatal, death benefits provide for a surviving spouse and dependent children. Every one of these categories depends on a properly documented average weekly wage figure, since that number, calculated correctly under Miss. Code Ann. Section 71-3-3(k) to include overtime, a second job, or fringe benefits like a company vehicle, controls every disability payment for the rest of the claim.

Common Mistakes That Cost Diamondhead Workers A Fair Spinal Cord Injury Settlement

Accepting the insurance company’s nurse case manager as a neutral resource is the most damaging mistake on a catastrophic claim, since every conversation with her becomes part of the record the adjuster uses to argue your treatment needs and your future capacity to work.

Agreeing to the Independent Medical Exam doctor’s limited work capacity finding without a second opinion from your own treating physician is the second mistake, and it is the one that most often knocks a genuine permanent total disability claim down to a smaller permanent partial disability number.

Failing to document future medical and attendant care needs early is the third mistake, one that regularly costs an injured worker decades of care the claim should have covered from the very first settlement conversation.

The TV Lawyer’s Hancock County Courthouse Problem On A Catastrophic Claim

He has never tried a workers comp case. He has never stood before an Administrative Judge in Hancock County Circuit Court arguing for a permanent total disability finding on a claim this large, and the insurance company’s defense team keeps a running mental file on every lawyer who has ever pushed a catastrophic Diamondhead claim to a contested hearing. The TV lawyer’s name is not on that list. When his secretary negotiates a spinal cord injury settlement, the adjuster already knows the number it takes to close the file, because he knows that lawyer will not push a permanent total disability fight into a real hearing where competing medical experts have to testify under oath about what you can and cannot do for the rest of your life.

The fee betrayal on a catastrophic settlement is the most damaging version of this problem, because the dollar figures are so much larger. The TV lawyer takes his cut off the top of a settlement that should have reflected a lifetime of care, then stacks invented fee after invented fee, a vocational expert fee whether or not one was genuinely engaged, a life care planner fee, an IME rebuttal fee that may never have actually happened, a fee for a new yacht. On an ordinary claim those fees are painful. On a catastrophic claim large enough to fund decades of your future care, they are devastating, and the running total always lands in the same place, more money for him than the case ever should have allowed.

Every case I take is covered by the Foster Fair Fee Guarantee. Written, in your agreement, before I do a single thing on your case. You get more money than I do, every time, no exceptions. No other lawyer advertising for Diamondhead spinal cord injury cases will put that promise in writing before you sign anything.

The Diamondhead workers compensation lawyer hub covers the full claim process for Hancock County cases, and the Diamondhead legal services hub covers every practice area. For the law itself, the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission is the state agency that administers every claim filed under this chapter.

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Frequently Asked Questions: Diamondhead Spinal Cord Injury Cases

P.S. The insurance company handling your Diamondhead spinal cord injury claim assigned a nurse case manager and set aside a reserve fund the day the injury was reported, and both exist to manage the claim down, not to help you. An Independent Medical Exam is likely coming before you have talked to anyone who knows what Mississippi law actually requires to prove permanent total disability. Get the FREE book first and find out what the insurance company is counting on you never finding out.

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