What is fair amount?

It is one thing to negotiate a settlement and another to gouge for more and more. You have to remember that accidents happen and if there was no faulty equipment or blatant negligence in the part of the company, you could have just as easily incurred this injury on your own. Anytime you are using mechanical devices the possibility of an accident is there. Goes with the territory.

What if you chopped off your leg with a chainsaw while cutting firewood at home, or fell and broke your arm or any other number of potential “accidents” that happen? There would be zero compensation for those accidents now would there? It is not like you were blinded, paralyzed or lost a limb or have a traumatic brain injury, you broke your HEEL, not the end of the world. I shattered my shoulder 35 years ago and had it pinned back together and I am still using that arm at 80% capacity and only suffer modest range of mobility issues.

I think you are getting greedy here and I would take the 30k-ish amount and consider yourself lucky. You have workmans comp. insurance and you, most certainly, can find new employment. The very fact that you are getting greedy here is, of course, a red flag for your employer. People are lawsuit happy and trump up their injuries all the time. Take the money offered and don’t be a greedy SOB is my advice.

Greedy I am not, I was saying the normal company is not supposed to let you go. Dude people worship a damn dollar which is sick, your probably more on money then myself, I’m actually too generous, but if I am entitled to something I think I should see what that is. Also, I have been told I could get 60,000 with lawyer maybe get 42000 or so I would rather take the high 30s than go through that mess, I know a lot of people will do anything for a dollar, but calm down on word greedy especially when you saying it to someone that despises greed.

Having a lawyer is definitely worth it. Yes, he takes ⅓ but he does the negotiation, he knows what the injury can get (not taking guesses as you are doing) and he handles all the court work and administrative work. Trust me it’s worth it.

You could at least meet with a lawyer and see what he/she thinks you could get and decide from there if you want to go that route.

@stewbaby1970 I am not intending to offend, but..your own words are “which has me thinking may I could get much more..” Sorry, but those words could easily be appropriated as greed. Like I said, this was not an accident that has left you permanently disfigured or disabled so 30+k sounds quite reasonable to me.

My stepfather got 35k from Workman’s comp in 1997 for a broken back he sustained the job when someone moved a scaffold he was standing on without warning. He ended up on full Social Security disability.

It’s all speculation. To get an accurate assessment of what your injury is worth, you need an attorney.

Your doctor’s assessment of your prognosis is likely what workman’s comp will consider when determining how much money you get. Workman’s comp will likely try to determine how much medical care you will need for the rest of your life including future medications, surgeries and hospital care.

It’s my suggestion that you try to eliminate negative thoughts about your injury. Like, “I will say I’m sure this will bother me rest of my life”. That’s erroneous because of course you don’t really know that for sure. What you think about comes about. As you think so shall you be.

Also use the time you have off from work and the money you receive from workman’s comp to get education/training for another profession that doesn’t require heavy manual labor.

Hope that you have a fast and complete recovery. Good health!

The way I understand it, if you take a settlement you won’t be able to go to them for anymore medical coverage.

$30k sounds low to me, except to say that if you received $60k with a lawyer you would only get about $30k in the end anyway.

Do I understand correctly you will have to leave your job, so will you also get unemployment? Will you be able to find a job easily? You need to cover your loss in wages and future medical.

This doesn’t sound like company negligence, just a random, par for the course accident, so that inevitably affects any payment due. To me it’s a case of simple loss of earnings & throw in medical bills.

I have an additional question. Are you unable to keep working at your job? If you like the company why not stay in with them and don’t close the WC case by taking a settlement? I hurt my back at work once and for 9 months I was hurting from it. About 6 of the months were really bad. I was on limited duty, I couldn’t lift more than 10 pounds for months, which is really difficult to avoid in that job. I didn’t have a permanent injury, thank goodness, so it’s different than your situation, but at that company often when people had injuries we accommodated them. Some did take settlements and leave. Or, sue, and then they had to leave also.

Maybe as a truck driver he’s unable to climb in and out of the truck, and jump down, @JLeslie.

@jca I was just wondering if the company has a different job for him. If he can’t do truck driving, then he will have to find a job in a new field. That can be difficult. If his company will help find a different spot for him it might be a good option.