Vicksburg Shoulder Injury Workers Comp Lawyer

Secrets of a Vicksburg shoulder injury workers comp lawyer’s single most valuable question: whether your claim is scheduled or nonscheduled, and whether he can explain the difference without pausing.

Mississippi Law On Shoulder Injuries At Work

A shoulder injury at work is governed by Miss. Code Ann. Section 71-3-7(1) at the causation stage, and then by Miss. Code Ann. Section 71-3-17(c)(25), the nonscheduled “other cases” category, in most claims. This surprises a lot of injured workers, since an arm is a listed scheduled member under the statute with a fixed 200 week award, but a shoulder injury typically falls outside that schedule unless the joint itself is amputated at or above the connection point. A torn rotator cuff or a shoulder labrum injury, however severe, is usually valued as a nonscheduled wage loss differential claim, 66-2/3% of the gap between your pre-injury and post-injury average weekly wage, for up to 450 weeks, not a fixed week count off a table. That distinction changes the entire shape of how the claim gets argued.

Hundreds Of Times A Shift: How A Vicksburg Shoulder Injury Actually Happens

He’s on the assembly line at Unified Brands, reaching up and slightly behind him hundreds of times an hour to hang a finished part on the overhead conveyor hook before the line moves it forward. Nothing about any single reach looks dangerous. It’s the two thousandth reach of the week, not the first, that finally does it, a small pop and a sudden hot pain across the top of his shoulder that doesn’t ease off the way a normal muscle strain would. He finishes the shift because the line doesn’t stop for one worker’s shoulder, and because nothing about the injury looks like the kind of thing you report right that second. Miss. Code Ann. Section 71-3-7(1) does not require a single dramatic event. Repetitive overhead motion that gradually damages a joint over weeks or months still arises out of and in the course of employment, and an insurance company’s first instinct on a claim like this is almost always to argue the injury developed outside of work entirely, from some unrelated hobby or household task, rather than from the actual repeated motion the job requires.

The Scheduled Versus Nonscheduled Fight, Explained Plainly

Miss. Code Ann. Section 71-3-17(19) treats an arm amputated at or above the wrist as a scheduled loss of the arm, 200 weeks. A shoulder injury that damages the joint itself without amputation, the overwhelming majority of real shoulder claims, does not fit that scheduled category at all. Instead it falls to Section 71-3-17(c)(25), valued on the actual wage loss the injury causes, which can be more valuable than a scheduled award in a case where the worker’s earning capacity is seriously damaged, or less valuable in a case where the worker can still earn close to the same wage in a different role. An insurance company benefits enormously from a worker who assumes his shoulder injury is worth a fixed 200 weeks the same way an amputation would be, since arguing down a nonscheduled wage loss claim is a completely different fight than disputing a fixed table number, and most injured workers have no idea which fight they are actually in, or which set of arguments actually applies to the injury they suffered.

Why The Insurance Company’s Doctor Loves Calling A Shoulder Injury “Resolved”

Shoulder injuries frequently improve with surgery and physical therapy to the point where a worker can perform many normal daily activities again without visible difficulty, even while genuinely lacking the specific range of motion, strength, or endurance a physically demanding job actually requires. An Independent Medical Exam doctor examining a shoulder months after surgery, watching a worker perform basic movements in an office setting, has every incentive to describe the injury as substantially resolved, a description that looks reasonable on paper but ignores whether the worker can genuinely return to hundreds of overhead reaches a shift without reinjuring the same joint. That gap between “can move the arm in an exam room” and “can perform the actual job eight hours a day” is exactly where a nonscheduled wage loss argument either gets made correctly or gets missed entirely.

Pre-Existing Shoulder Wear And What The Insurance Company Cannot Simply Assume

Shoulders wear with age and repeated use even outside of work, and an MRI on almost any worker over 40 can show some pre-existing rotator cuff thinning or arthritis regardless of whether it ever caused symptoms before the work injury. Miss. Code Ann. Section 71-3-7(2) allows the insurance company to argue apportionment when a pre-existing condition is shown by real medical evidence to be a material contributing factor, but that argument has to be proven, not simply assumed because an imaging report happens to mention age-related wear. A Unified Brands line worker with a decade of overhead motion behind him is not automatically handed a reduced claim the day his rotator cuff finally tears completely, and connecting a specific percentage of today’s disability to yesterday’s asymptomatic wear is the insurance company’s burden, not his.

Something Your TV Lawyer Has Never Argued Inside The Warren County Courthouse

Ask him plainly whether he has ever argued a scheduled member dispute or a nonscheduled classification fight in front of a Warren County Administrative Judge. A lawyer who has genuinely done this knows the difference costs or gains real money on nearly every shoulder claim that comes through this county, and can explain it to you in one clear sentence without reaching for a script. A lawyer whose only experience is a television script has never had a reason to learn the distinction exists, let alone argue it to the judge who actually decides it.

External Resources And Vicksburg Cross-Links

Visit the Vicksburg workers compensation lawyer hub for every Warren County workers comp topic. For the official state agency’s own general information, visit the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission.

The Foster Fair Fee Guarantee On A Shoulder Injury Claim

Under the Foster Fair Fee Guarantee, you get more money than I do, in writing, before we start, and I take $0.00 out of your temporary total disability check while your wage loss differential is being properly calculated, not guessed at by an adjuster in a hurry to close the file.

▼ Get Your FREE Book Right Now ▼
Fill Out The Form Below And I Will Send It Immediately

If You Actually Ask This Question, Your TV Lawyer’s Secrets Come Out Fast

If you actually ask your prospective lawyer whether your shoulder claim is scheduled or nonscheduled, and why, you will find out in about ten seconds whether he has ever really handled one of these claims before. If you ask him to explain how a wage loss differential gets calculated when a worker takes a lower paying job after surgery, you will find out even faster. Most people never ask, because most people assume a shoulder is simple, the same way an arm is simple. It isn’t, and the secrets of how these claims actually get valued only come out once someone asks the right question.

Your TV Lawyer’s Fee Stack On A Shoulder Injury Claim

Ask yourself does it matter if your orthopedic surgeon has actually performed a real rotator cuff repair before you let him operate on your shoulder. Ask yourself does it matter if your physical therapist has actually rehabilitated a real overhead-motion shoulder injury before or is simply working from a generic printed protocol. Ask yourself does it matter whether the lawyer arguing your wage loss differential even knows the difference between a scheduled and nonscheduled claim before he starts negotiating your case. A shoulder claim rewards genuine experience and punishes guesswork more than almost any other injury type in this practice area.

He has never argued a nonscheduled wage loss differential on a shoulder claim in front of a Warren County Administrative Judge. He has never cross examined an Independent Medical Exam doctor about the difference between exam room range of motion and actual job performance. He has never had to explain to an insurance adjuster why “substantially resolved” does not mean “back to full duty.” I do not print a percentage on this page, because watching the fee stack build tells the story better than any number could.

A medical record retrieval fee across the orthopedist, the surgeon, and the physical therapist, each billed separately. An IME rebuttal expert fee, because somebody has to respond when the insurance company’s doctor calls the injury resolved. A wage documentation assembly fee, because someone has to actually calculate the real wage loss differential instead of simply accepting whatever number the adjuster offers, a calculation that requires real work, not a guess typed into a settlement letter. That’s not a fifty dollar line item. That’s not a five hundred dollar line item. This isn’t rare. This is what happens to nearly every nonscheduled shoulder claim handled by a firm that treats a shoulder the same as a listed scheduled member, because treating the two the same is exactly the mistake that costs an injured worker real money. A settlement mill’s secretary cannot explain the scheduled versus nonscheduled distinction either, because nobody at that call center has ever had to argue it to a judge who actually decides which category controls the outcome.

Frequently Asked Questions About Vicksburg Shoulder Injury Claims

P.S. Ask any lawyer you are considering whether your shoulder claim is scheduled or nonscheduled before you sign anything. His answer, or his silence, tells you everything.

▼ Get Your FREE Book Right Now ▼
Fill Out The Form Below And I Will Send It Immediately