Have you been injured in the workplace and believe it to have been caused by someone or something else other than yourself?
Whether your job is based in a more traditional office setting or you work as a warehouse worker whose role constantly involves working with heavy and potentially dangerous machinery, you have rights.
With that being said, here is everything that you need to know about injuries in the workplace, how to determine if you were at fault, and how you can get justice you deserve.
How Do You Know You Were Not at Fault?
As you would expect, the company you are looking to raise a case against will, if it does get to that stage, be looking for absolutely everything and anything they can to discredit you as an employer and more importantly, absolve themselves of any responsibility as a business.
As an employee, it is your basic right to be afforded a reasonable level of duty of care. This consists of the provision of the correct PPE (Personal Protection Equipment), proper health and safety measures, and fully functioning and tested machinery.
When considering whether you have a case or not, try and be as thorough as you can when detailing what happened and what you were doing through every stage of the incident. Frankly, if it was indeed your fault, then you will almost certainly be funded out, and it is highly likely that will be sooner rather than later.
A Work Incident Report is Essential
Hopefully, you were savvy enough, should you not have been even partially incapacitated, to have the foresight to complete a workplace incident report, either yourself or dictating to a trusted colleague.
The basic components of a thorough workplace incident report should include:
- A detailed description of everything that happened in chronological order
- The name of anyone who was affected
- The result of the situation
- The date and accurate time the incident occurred
- The name of the author or, ideally, the name of a witness
Outside of the Workplace
Alternatively, it could well be the case that you have experienced an unsavory situation while still in your working uniform, even in the context of dealing with law enforcement, and if so, should you want to make a case, make sure to contact experienced in police brutality lawyers.
Naturally, the process of such a case is entirely dependent, in terms of speed and success, on the individual details, but working with an eminent attorney will certainly arm you with the right tools and knowledge.
What Are Your Rights?
As previously mentioned, your employer needs to respect your legal rights for every single second you are at work, and if you are confident that this absolutely was not the case in your own situation, then you may well have a case and be able to seek justice and compensation.
There are eight federal laws that serve to protect a company’s employees; Unemployment Benefits, Minimum Wage Requirements, Whistleblower Protection, Family Leave, Health Coverage, No Discrimination Rule, and Social Security.