Whenever an employee is injured, a report of injury is to be filed with the State of Missouri.  If an employee chooses, he may file a claim for compensation with the Workers’ Compensation division.  His case will then be assigned to one of the state offices and eventually proceedings will be scheduled in front of a judge.

As part of the claim for compensation, an employee can request to be compensated by the State of Missouri for pre existing injuries and disabilities.  The basic concept is that an injured employee may be affected by other injuries and disabilities which pre existed the work injury.  For example, I recall representing an employee many years ago who had a rotator cuff tear injury to his right shoulder.  Under normal circumstances, this would be a significant injury, but the employee had been afflicted with Polio, as a child and had little or no use of his left arm.  He had managed to work in a factory setting performing all of his work with one arm.  As  you can imagine, the injury to his right shoulder had created complications because his only “good” arm was now injured.  He relied on his right arm for everything and now he was suffering from an injury which limited what he could do.

I filed a Second Injury Fund claim on behalf of the injured worker and we were eventually able to enter into an additional settlement above and beyond what the insurance company paid.  If you are injured on the job, any pre existing disabilities should be considered regardless of their cause.  An experienced attorney can then analyze all of your medical records in order to determine your eligibility for additional benefits. Jeff Swaney FREE CONSULTATION 314-481-7778

For More Information, Please Visit the Swaney Law Firm website

Tags: second injury fund, second injury fund attorney, Second Injury Fund Claims

This entry was posted on Monday, September 15th, 2008 at 2:17 pm and is filed under Second Injury Fund Claims, Worker's Comp. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.