Employers have a duty to provide their employees with a safe working environment. As such, statewide and federal workers’ compensation laws have been established to insure that injured employees from work accidents receive necessary medical attention and lost wages at no expense. Unfortunately, many times insurance companies and employers do not follow the applicable laws. In fact, they may even deter an individual from making a claim, harass, delay and or deny appropriate medical treatment and or lost wages. As such, its’ very important to contact Evan at (954) 227-7529, (866) I SUE YOU, (866) 478-3968 right away in order to protect your workers’ compensation rights.
A recent case (but not from Florida) may help define just how far that duty goes. The suit was brought by a worker who had been bitten by a mosquito. Unfortunately, the mosquito carried the West Nile virus, and the worker contracted encephalitis. As a result, he suffered a severe loss of cognitive function, and he can no longer walk without a cane. The worker sued his employer, a railroad. The evidence showed that the company knew of the dangers mosquitoes presented but that it had neither warned the employees nor provided those who were working outside and around the infested areas with bug spray. The employer attempted to argue that there was no evidence showing that the worker had been bitten while working, that it had no duty to protect its employees from “wild” animals and that in any case the danger that someone working outside might be bitten by a mosquito is well known. Fortunately, the jury did not buy the railroad’s theory . After just a few days, they returned a verdict in favor of the injured worker.