In November of 2020, a 48 year-old-woman went to work like every other work day. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a day like every other. While on the job, she was injured in a car accident in Brighton, Massachusetts. Like many other injured workers, she wasn’t sure what to do. Then she hired the Framingham accident lawyers at Mahaney & Pappas, LLP.
Our experienced injury attorneys handled every aspect of her Massachusetts workers’ compensation claim and her third-party personal injury claim. This allowed our client to focus on her treatment, recovery, and health. In the end, we were able to get her the workers’ compensation benefits she deserved and also recover $100,000 in compensation from the negligent driver’s auto insurance company.
The Unexpected Car Crash Caused by Carelessness
Our client lived in Attleboro, Massachusetts and was a highly educated woman, who worked in the medical field. On this day, she drove from one patient’s home to another’s. On her drive to her patient’s home, she drove down a residential street in Brighton. As she drove down the street, another driver got into his pickup truck in his driveway. He started his pickup truck, put it in reverse, and, without looking, he backed his truck up into the street. Sadly, he was careless and didn’t look as he backed up. He crashed right into the passenger side of our client’s car causing a serious crash.
The collision caused our client to strike the left side of her body on the interior of the driver’s side door and strike her head on the window. She was stunned by the impact of the vehicles and felt immediate pain. Even though she was in shock and hurt, she managed to take photographs of the vehicles and collect the other driver’s information.
Overview of This Client’s Injuries and Treatment
After the car crash, this client sought immediate medical attention for pain in the left elbow, numbness in the fingers, headaches, and blurry vision. The medical professionals were concerned about her symptoms and immediately performed some diagnostic tests including x-rays of her cervical spine and left elbow as well as a CT scan head/brain. Luckily, her cervical spine x-ray was negative for fractures of her vertebra. However, the x-ray image of the left elbow showed a small avulsion fracture. She was diagnosed with having suffered a fractured left elbow, wrist injury, concussion, and a cervical strain.
Her concussion caused months of symptoms, including headaches, dizziness, as well as light and noise sensitivity. Her concussion developed into post-concussive syndrome. She came under the care of a neurologist, who specialized in head injuries. She underwent months of treatment and restrictions to recover from her head injury.
This client followed her doctor’s recommendations for her head injury, which consisted of restrictions and therapy for her concussion symptoms. She also received Botox injections, trigger point injections, and medications to help manage her post-concussion symptoms allowing her to continue with her concussion therapy. The therapy was very helpful and allowed this client to return to part-time work after a couple of months of treatment.
Her left elbow fracture and left wrist injury were problematic as well. She was referred to an orthopedic surgeon, who ordered an MRI of her left wrist. The MRI showed an ulnar triquetral tear / defect of the lunotriquetral ligament. Fortunately, the orthopedic surgeon did not believe she needed surgery but did recommend physical therapy.
This client was consistent with her doctors’ treatment plans and attended physical therapy for months. The physical therapy was difficult and caused some pain and discomfort. Her doctor recommended and performed two intra-articular wrist steroid injections, which provided some short-term relief allowing her to continue with therapy. Following months of therapy, this client made a great recovery from her injuries.
The Workers’ Compensation Claim
Since this client was in the course of her employment at the time of her car crash, she was eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. There was no question that this worker was hurt on the job and she reported her work accident right away. Therefore, her employer’s workers’ compensation insurance company voluntarily paid temporary total disability benefits while she was out of work. They also covered all of her medical treatment under the medical benefits from workmen’s compensation.
During her treatment and recovery, this client was able to manage her symptoms and return to part-time work. When she returned to restrictive duty at work, she obviously was not earning the same amount of money she did prior to the accident. Thus, our Framingham workers’ compensation lawyers were able to obtain temporary partial disability benefits for this worker to make up a portion of the earnings she lost.
At times, this worker’s doctors recommended certain treatments and the workers’ compensation insurance company wouldn’t approve the treatment. Our injury attorneys got involved and were able to force workers’ compensation to pay for the treatment needed.
The Third-Party Personal Injury Claim
Since this worker was injured by a third party (the driver of the pickup truck) while she was on the job, she was also able to seek compensation through a bodily injury claim. This was separate and apart from her workers’ compensation claim. However, as you will see, they are connected.
The staff at our Framingham injury law firm tracked all of this client’s treatment. We handled all aspects of her personal injury claim, which allowed our client to focus on her treatment and recovery.
Once our client reached a maximum medical improvement from her injuries, we took the next step and prepared a thorough demand for settlement. After this demand was served on the auto insurance company, we thoroughly negotiated recovery of the compensation our client deserved for her injuries and losses suffered in this accident. Our lawyers were able to recover $100,000 for our client.
Additionally, since this client received workers’ compensation benefits, there was a workers’ compensation lien on her third-party personal injury claim. Our experienced injury lawyers were able to negotiate a significant reduction of the lien. This allowed our client to recover more money from her settlement.
This client was a pleasure to represent. She was great at keeping our office updated with her treatment process and followed all of our attorney’s advice and recommendations. This allowed her to recovery the full amount of compensation she deserved
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