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016 Construction Accidents

016 Construction Accidents

Lawyers in the House with Montlick

Attorneys in Podcast: Ben Copeland, Esq.

Massive machinery, treacherous heights, and heavy equipment combine to make one of our most necessary industries – construction – one of the most dangerous for workers. Attorney Ben Copeland is in the house to talk construction accidents:

What to do if you’re a worker hurt on the job?
What is the responsibility of employers before and after an injury?
How can a lawyer help you in the event of an injury?

Listen to the Podcast

The purpose of this show is to provide general information about the law. Our guests will not provide any individualized legal advice. If you have a personal situation and need legal advice, contact us for your free legal consultation with a Montlick attorney.

Topics Discussed on the Podcast

Read the Episode Transcript

00:04	ANNOUNCER: Welcome to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Wish you had a lawyer in the family? Now you do. Here’s your host, Veronica Waters. VERONICA: Hey, and welcome to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m your host Veronica Waters. Has anybody ever heard of the term ego surfing? Does anybody know what that is?
00:29	VERONICA: Ego surfing? BEN: I have not heard… VERONICA: Okay, so that’s the practice of, like, going online and let’s say googling your own name, right? Okay. Now, I’m not saying that this is something I do all of the time, but I was driving down 85 the other day, just a couple of days ago, and I am… My head’s on a swivel, right? Because I’m looking around, trying to spot this face on a Montlick billboard, you know? So I’m looking around, and I’m driving around North Druid Hills area, and I look up, and I see these dots on the horizon, basically.
01:00	VERONICA: And I’m like, looking up there, and I’m like, oh my God, those dots are people! It was the top of the construction that’s going on at the Children’s Health Care of Atlanta Rehab Center over there. And I was like, oh my God, they’re so little up there. What do we look like to them? And I thought how terrifying, how thrilling it must be to be up there. But then how terrifying to be up there in such a dangerous location in one of the most dangerous jobs that there is sometimes.
01:33	VERONICA: And construction accidents are what we’re talking about today on Lawyers in the House with Montlick. As always, I am joined by two stupendous attorneys from Montlick, injury attorneys, and I’m going to introduce you to them right now. They are Jeff Beaird, who is an Alabama native who joined the state of Georgia in 2005, a little while after his son was born, and he’s been practicing law since 1994 and has been with Montlick since…? JEFF: 2008.
02:03	VERONICA: 2008, which is the same year that Ben Copeland started practicing law, actually. Also comes to us from Alabama, University of Alabama Grad Mercer Law. BEN: That’s right. VERONICA: Welcome to Georgia. Okay. I love getting to know you guys because I have started to see the passion that you have for the law, and I really want to introduce folks to you right off the bat by you telling them a little bit about what got you here. What inspired you to become an attorney? Jeff?
02:40	JEFF: I’ve said before, sometimes, that I somewhat backed into it. I did have two uncles who were in the law. Both were circuit judges over in Alabama. My father was not a lawyer. A lot of people assumed that, but he was not. He actually was a real estate agent and an insurance salesman. But my uncles had both kind of advanced through the military into the law. It was a gateway. The military had been a gateway for our family to kind of move out of what was previously just coal mining before that.
03:12	JEFF: And one day my father said, you need to finish college. We’ve all done our time already. You go finish college. And about halfway through, I had a conversation with my father and said I was thinking about law school. He said, you need to go and kind of talk to your uncles. And my Uncle Hugh, who was not a circuit judge at that time, but later became one- I worked with him through the summer and just kind of went through that direction.
03:38	JEFF: Our family has always kind of been in that vein since my grandfather was a union representative, union leader in the United Mine Workers of America. So our impulse has always been to help people, to try to help workers. It’s just I kind of gravitated towards workers compensation and what I’ve been doing… Outside of…. I’ve done other areas of law. I’ve done domestic relations, bankruptcy, things like that. But I’ve primarily always done workers compensation. VERONICA: I love it.
04:07	VERONICA: And Ben Copeland knew from when he was just a little bitty boy that he wanted to be a lawyer, like Jeff was saying. All the other kids were like, I want to be a fireman. I want to be a policeman. And you were like, I want to be an attorney. BEN: That’s right. VERONICA: So here you are today, creative thinker, compassionate with your clients. When did you know, though, having reached your goal, that you had done the right thing? When did you know you were in the right field? BEN: There are individual instances, really, anytime that I can help someone that’s going through a very difficult time.
04:39	BEN: And like Jeff, I’ve done a lot of different areas of law. I’ve handled domestic relations and I’ve handled personal injury claims. But I primarily handle workers compensation claims predominantly. And really, it’s about helping people through the most difficult parts of their lives. And that’s what I love to do. VERONICA: It is probably some field that I think tugs at your emotions a bit. BEN: It does.
05:08	BEN: Yes, it certainly does. VERONICA: Construction accidents are what we’re talking about today. And the construction industry is one that is consistently at the top of the federal government’s list of industries that have a lot of workplace accidents. So I’m sure you guys have seen a lot of these cases. The OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration, says that everybody who survives construction accidents are often likely to be hospitalized because the injuries are so severe, but they also account for one in five fatalities.
05:43	VERONICA: It’s construction accidents. Why are they so dangerous? Ben? BEN: Well, you’re doing very difficult laborious work, and it puts you in a dangerous position around a lot of heavy equipment in very dangerous situations, working at very high levels or working with heavy equipment, heavy machinery and things of that nature. So it is a very dangerous job, and it’s one where you can be very injured or even die as a result of your work.
06:13	VERONICA: Yeah. Are there certain types of injuries that are the most common, Jeff? JEFF: I think you’re going to get a lot of injuries from different things. We have… fall injuries are fairly common. You have equipment injuries. It could be that you’re operating a particular piece of equipment or someone else is operating a piece of equipment and there’s a mistake. So you get hit with materials, you get hit with equipment. There are a lot of different things that go in there.
06:44	JEFF: A construction site is, by its own nature, a dangerous place, and there are safety protocols that are put into place in almost all construction sites. But it is… you’re working, again, like Ben said, around a lot of heavy equipment. You’re working sometimes with hazardous materials or dangerous materials, things when you’re building with rebar, which is what some people are familiar with. But it’s a very heavy metal bar.
07:13	JEFF: It’s a rigid metal bar. And I’ve seen when this wasn’t properly capped, at times, it could puncture. You can get a severe puncture wound just from something that seems fairly simple, but it’s just you’re in a place where there’s a lot of dangers around you. VERONICA: What makes these kinds of accidents so different from typical cases that you see? BEN: I think it can be the severity of the accident.
07:46	BEN: I think the injuries can really run the gamut from simple cuts and bruises and things of that nature to death. And we’ve seen a lot of injuries with Montlick where people have been horrifically injured as a result of construction accidents just from falls, from being run over. VERONICA: Oh, what? BEN: Yes.
08:11	BEN: I’ve represented an individual who was run over by a heavy loader and his lower leg was crushed. VERONICA: Oh, my God. BEN: So it can run the gamut from crush injuries to falls to even just simple injuries like cuts and bruises and things like that. But the bad injuries can be very, very bad. VERONICA: Yeah, I did cover a story of a similar construction accident, and it was a fatal.
08:38	VERONICA: One heavy piece of machinery rolled down a hill and pinned someone. It’s just horrific to think about the dangers; and construction is so important to us. I mean, we wouldn’t have anywhere to live if not for these guys and gals. But they are, in some ways, putting their lives on the line to make sure that we have safe places to live and to operate. Tell me about some of the stuff that makes a case easier to take.
09:09	VERONICA: Like, what are the things that you look for? When somebody… if I had a construction accident or know somebody, what do you need to know from me that’s going to tell you whether or not this is something that we can pursue? BEN: It really depends on sort of the severity of the injury. If you’ve got a job in the construction industry and you’ve had a cut on your hand, that’s probably not a case that you’re going to want to pursue long term with an attorney unless it becomes very severe.
09:43	BEN: So really the severity of the injury is what we’re really looking for. Typically when I’m looking at injuries, I’m looking at injuries where the person is going to have some sort of permanent issue as a result of the injury that they’ve sustained. VERONICA: Okay. And Jeff, then do I count on my employer to do right by me? JEFF: Not necessarily. The thing about it is this and a lot of construction companies, a lot of contractors, they’re going to pride themselves in not having work accidents.
10:17	JEFF: And it’s one of the big things. So they don’t want to have a lot of work accidents out there. And there are times in which… I’ve certainly encountered this before. Ben, you probably have as well. I know we need to get into contractors. But in certain situations where the contractor, the subcontractor says, I’ll just go down, I’ll take you to the hospital, pay it with a credit card. Just don’t file a workers compensation claim because they want to avoid the word.
10:45	JEFF: And in fairness, I’m sure their workers compensation premiums are high, again, because of the dangerous nature of what we’re doing here. But the incentive sometimes maybe to avoid having a claim is going to be stronger for the employer than obviously for the employee. VERONICA: But isn’t the workers comp there to protect not just the employee but the employer too? BEN: That’s correct, yes.
11:10	BEN: But there’s also an incentive, I think, sometimes for some employers to not have claims reported on their workers compensation insurance policies. I think most employers do the right thing and when there’s an injury, they take their employees to get treatment for the injuries that they sustain. But there’s also that there’s a push and pull there.
11:32	BEN: So you do encounter situations where the injuries aren’t reported and time passes and when the employee comes around to say, “look, I’m not getting any better from this,” then the workers compensation claim isn’t pursued because it’s been so long since the original injury occurred. VERONICA: Is there a lot of pushback then from the part of the employer? BEN: Exactly. JEFF: Lifting incidents are one of the things.
11:57	JEFF: A lifting injury is fairly common, but it’s one of those it’s not as obvious if you have a crush injury like Ben said, or if you fall off a second story. These are very obvious injuries that are visible, whereas you have just as well as you have in so many other occupations, you can have a lifting injury that causes a back injury, neck injury that isn’t really seen a lot of times at the very beginning and so that it gets ignored.
12:27	VERONICA: Okay. Now what are some other common defenses that employers will try to use? BEN: Well, really, there’s a number of affirmative defenses that an employer can use in a worker’s compensation claim. It can run anywhere from a claim that someone was willfully doing something wrong on the employment or willfully not using safety equipment that they should use or that they had a positive drug screen. And one of the things that you should know is that you should never refuse a drug screen if you’ve had a work accident.
12:58	VERONICA: Why is that? BEN: Because that is the fastest way to get the claim denied. VERONICA: Wow. JEFF: And again, the focus is on willful misconduct with a drug test, even if it’s a positive drug test, even though by law in the state of Georgia, there is a presumption of intoxication from a positive drug test, that does not mean it’s the end. I’ve had a client before that I was set up with tested positive. It was from taking herbal supplements. So it’s not necessarily the end. VERONICA: It is not necessarily the end of the road.
13:27	VERONICA: We’re talking construction accidents on Lawyers in the House with Jeff Beaird and Ben Copeland. We’ll be right back. VERONICA: Welcome back with us to the House. Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB.
13:57	VERONICA: I’m your host. Veronica waters, here with Jeff Beaird and Ben Copeland, two fabulous attorneys from Montlick. And we’re talking about construction accidents in Georgia. Guys, I feel like the construction industry can be sort of fluid. You know, when I’m going by Home Depot, I see the day laborers out there looking for jobs, and it makes me think about how big construction sites are. These jobs are huge. And there are a lot of people. Are these guys considered like independent contractors?
14:26	VERONICA: And is there some sort of special layer of protection or risk if you’re an independent contractor? JEFF: So the real question with an independent contractor is and there’s a multiplicity of factors in the state of Georgia that determines whether one’s an independent contractor or not. A lot of people focus on the 1099. A 1099 does not necessarily make you an independent contractor. The key is and again, there are many factors in the state of Georgia, but the key is who has control over the employment, who tells you when to be there, what to do, how long to do it.
15:00	JEFF: And there are other factors that come in there, but simply the fact that you have a 1099 or the employer says you are an independent contractor does not necessarily establish you that you’re an independent contractor. VERONICA: Say what? BEN: That’s right. Simply because the employer indicates that you’re an independent contractor, even through forms, doesn’t necessarily mean that you are, in fact, an independent contractor.
15:22	BEN: And that’s why it’s important that if you’ve had an injury that you call 1800 Law Need to make sure that if you have a claim that we can pursue it for you because we’ll be able to properly evaluate whether or not you’re an independent contractor or whether you fill the requirements of an employee. VERONICA: Yeah, because I could get hurt and I take the claim to them and they’re like, no, we can’t help you. You’re an IC. So, independent contractor basically. But you’re saying not necessarily.
15:51	VERONICA: Have you ever had a case like that? JEFF: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. I think that’s fairly common because again, the method of pay seems to be the thing that the employee focuses on the most. And when they have the 1099, that seems to be the thing that triggers that. VERONICA: That 1099 seems like it’s the sort of end all, be all. JEFF: But it’s not. And that’s, I guess, the big thing. There are, as Ben said, there are more factors.
16:20	JEFF: And the only way you’re going to be able to determine that is not by having the employer tell you you’re an independent contractor or just relying on the fact that you’re a 1099 employee, but calling us at Montlick and saying, here’s what’s happening so that we can consult with you and analyze these. VERONICA: So what I hear you saying is that these independent contractor cases do get automatic denial. But the truth of the matter is you might not necessarily be an independent contractor just because somebody said you are.
16:49	BEN: That’s correct. VERONICA: Super helpful. Thank you. That is really going to help somebody. Thank you so much for explaining that to me. Still to come, what you should know about construction accidents, whether you are an employee or an employer. This is Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB.
17:21	VERONICA: So glad you are back with us in the House. Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m your host, Veronica Waters, and I’m here with Ben Copeland and Jeff Beaird from Montlick. Injury attorneys talking about construction accidents specifically in Georgia and how the law can help you if you’ve been hurt in one of these accidents.
17:42	VERONICA: And, guys, I mentioned in the first segment, OSHA talked about the Occupational Safety and Hazard Administration and I think a lot of us have heard OSHA, but what exactly does that organization do? Let’s get into some nitty gritty definitions here. JEFF: OSHA really regulates (for certain employers and not all employers), but it regulates safety measures and safety procedures that are supposed to be in place. That’s a federal law. And the OSHA law is there basically to regulate the employers.
18:13	JEFF: It is not there for the employees per se. It’s there for the employee’s safety. But it’s not like the Workers Compensation Act in Georgia. The Workers Compensation Act is to protect employees when you have an injury in the course of your employment. OSHA usually is going to cite the employer if they in fact have violated safety protocols. The other thing is, under the laws of the state of Georgia outside of OSHA, which again is different in the Federal Act, the employer is not required to have a safe workplace.
18:46	VERONICA: Wait a minute. Back up, sir. JEFF: Yes. VERONICA: The State of Georgia does not require employers to maintain a safe work space? JEFF: No, there is not a specific law like OSHA in the state of Georgia that requires the employers to maintain a safe workplace. That, we say, is what the Workers Compensation Act is for. And that’s why we have a no-fault provision. As the Workers Compensation Act, you don’t have to prove that the employer did anything wrong.
19:17	JEFF: All you have to do is show you got injured in the course of employment. VERONICA: Now, what happens if you have an accident on the job and your employer says, I don’t have any workers comp? BEN: That’s when things can get really complicated under Georgia law. If you’re on a construction site, under Georgia law, if your employer doesn’t have workers compensation coverage, what you may be able to do is access a general contractor’s insurance coverage. It’s called statutory employment.
19:47	BEN: You would become for the purposes of your work injury, an employee of the general contractor, and get workers compensation coverage through that insurance policy. VERONICA: So the general contractor is like the big boss on a site? The big signs I see.. BEN: Mega Contractor Inc. VERONICA: Okay. And then the subcontractor is…? BEN: Bob’s Bricks, for instance. VERONICA: Okay. All right, so I go to my boss at Bob’s Bricks and I say, ouch, I got hit by a brick or whatever, rebar. And he’s like, sorry buddy, don’t have any.
20:17	VERONICA: Then you’re saying I go then to Megacorp? BEN: That’s correct, yes. And you really need to call an attorney and find out whether that’s even an option for you and who’s on the site, who has insurance coverage, who you may have a claim against. Because if you’re on a construction site, let’s say you work for Joe’s Plumbing and you’re walking through the construction site and a brick falls on you from Bob’s Bricks, if Joe’s Plumbing doesn’t have insurance coverage, you may be able to access the insurance coverage for Mega Contractor, Inc.
20:52	BEN: But you also may have a third party claim against Bob’s Bricks because of the brick that fell that was of no fault of your own. VERONICA: Yes. I was curious about whether or not sometimes these cases can actually be more than one thing. You know, can it be personal injury, can it be workers comp, can it be construction accident, whatever? BEN: All of the above. VERONICA: Yeah, all of the above. JEFF: Which is why you want to make that call, because there may be more than one liability, if you will.
21:23	JEFF: There may be more than one cause of action or avenue of recovery. If you don’t call, you’re not going to be able to find those things out. And again, a lot of times someone may try to direct if you get simply that statement, we don’t have workers compensation insurance, that may or may not be true. VERONICA: Okay, so when I talked to Alex about the workers comp thing before… right, Alex and David, we did workers comp. And I was saying how incredible it is that this thing is like sort of… I thought it was statutory.
21:55	VERONICA: They were like, that’s what it’s there to do? It’s there to help protect both folks on the scene. Right. Why would somebody say, I don’t have it? JEFF: I’ve had cases in which the employer, the subcontractor, had an expired certificate of insurance or had a lack of any better terminology, a forged certificate of insurance. So we don’t always know. And that’s why, again, the simple fact is the same thing with the independent contractor analysis.
22:24	JEFF: Just because the employer or an employer says that to you, that doesn’t necessarily mean that’s what is the fact. And so that’s why, again, you need to call when you have an injury, because not only are there multiple potential claims, but there’s also maybe you’re not getting all of the truth. VERONICA: And Ben, you’ve had a case like this that sort of hit all of these points BEN: Very similar.
22:46	BEN: Yes, I’ve had cases where, for instance, an individual was working on a ladder and the employer allegedly told them not to do the work that he was performing, and he ended up falling from the ladder and sustaining injuries to three out of his four appendages, shattered his bones, was in the hospital for a long time. And the claim was denied based on the willful misconduct defense.
23:13	BEN: But there was also an allegation that he was an independent contractor and that company did have insurance, and we ended up getting a good result for that gentleman. But claims can be denied for any number of reasons. VERONICA: That can’t have been easy, and it can’t have been fast. BEN: It’s very tough. It’s one of the most difficult circumstances that you can deal with is someone who is very seriously injured and has no coverage under workers compensation because the claim is denied.
23:43	BEN: They don’t have any medical treatment coverage, they don’t have any income while they’re out of work. So it’s a very, very difficult circumstance. And those claims can last years sometimes. VERONICA: And then you… no income. What are you supposed to do? I mean, that’s got to be one of the toughest things to endure. BEN: Devastating. Yes. JEFF: It’s fairly simple to deny a claim under Georgia law for an employer and insurer, but the ability to come back in and prevail or to get a result, a positive result out of that claim, will sometimes take time.
24:20	JEFF: And that’s why, again, you need to call and get a consult as soon as possible in these situations so that you know what your rights are, so that you know kind of a roadmap going forward. Because again, it’s easy for an insurance company to file a denial. It’s going to take sometimes, unfortunately, like Ben said, it’s going to take some time, sometimes to get that straightened out. BEN: But if you accept the denial and you don’t do anything about it, if you let too much time pass, you won’t be able to pursue anything.
24:53	JEFF: Exactly. VERONICA: Yeah, time is of the essence, right? BEN: Correct VERONICA: curveball for you not going to see this one coming. What if I am self-employed? What if I am the Bob of Bob’s Bricks and I get hurt? BEN: Well, I actually get phone calls every now and then from employers or self-employed individuals or people that have a few employees, and they’re asking me, what do I need to do?
25:21	BEN: And my first answer is, well, you need to look into procuring workers compensation insurance coverage for you because that’s really your only option. Otherwise, if you get hurt on the job, there’s no one else to look to for that. JEFF: Without some sort of other party’s negligence. And I think that’s the big thing is that you will get those calls. And it’s like, well, I fell off a ladder. I was on somebody else’s property.
25:48	JEFF: Well, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the property owner would be liable in that situation. That’s why, as Ben said, it’s best as an independent contractor to look into getting that workers compensation insurance because that’s the best coverage you’re going to get. VERONICA: There’s a lot of finger pointing, though. A lot of finger pointing. JEFF: I think that the finger pointing comes in more than ever in situations where there is a coverage issue.
26:13	JEFF: And again, if you have that coverage as an independent, as an actual independent contractor, if you have that coverage, then you’re going to have a lot better results. You may have a claim against a property owner. And again, that’s why you get the consult. But if you don’t and you don’t have workers compensation insurance, then you’ve got very limited options at that point in time. VERONICA: Have you ever had a case, guys, where you picked up the phone or somebody called you, right…?
26:42	VERONICA: Somebody calls the number and you pick it up and there’s somebody there with this construction story and you’re like, oh, why didn’t you call me before XYZ, you did this or you said that, or what? Tell me about one of those times. BEN: And it’s not necessarily just construction accidents, absolutely. But we get calls on a regular basis where people are calling two years after an accident happened, or sometimes even longer than that.
27:13	BEN: And it’s important to know that under Georgia law, in most circumstances, that you’ve got a year from the date of the injury to file a notice of claim with the workers compensation system. And if you don’t do that, there’s some ways that you can extend it. But if you don’t do that, you won’t even have the ability to pursue the worker’s compensation claim any longer. VERONICA: Jeff, tell me about a case that made you feel really good once you got it under your wing.
27:44	JEFF: And this would kind of fall under one of those categories that is a little bit odd from the standpoint of the way that things work out. We talked about there’s a lot of different claims that may be there. I had a claim in which a man was being transported to his work site. And Georgia Limits… This again, they’re very narrow circumstances and there was an automobile accident.
28:07	JEFF: This was actually… and the question is, first of all, is that in the course of employment? We were able to get a workers compensation recovery, but we were also able to get a recovery, because there was concern that there was no insurance on the other side, the automobile accident. We were able to get an uninsured motorist recovery as well. So again, there’s a lot of things we have with what’s called ingress and egress. All right, so something… you may be going onto the site and be injured, not actually picking up a hammer or doing anything, but as you’re going onto the site or leaving the site, you can be injured.
28:37	JEFF: So when you’re able to get a result like that in something that it feels like it didn’t look like there was much hope to begin with, that’s a good feeling because when you have people that are seriously injured and you get denials or they get told things which may not be 100% correct and they call us and we can help them, that’s a good feeling. VERONICA: Look at these Davids going up against the Goliath and winning.
29:02	VERONICA: When I think about these cases and we mention OSHA again, do people just to verify… if I’m hurt, I’m not contacting OSHA, right? Or am I? BEN: Well, you can contact OSHA, but honestly, they’re there as more of a reactive agency to investigate accidents that have occurred. You’re not going to get a recovery based on an OSHA investigation.
29:32	BEN: Really. If you had an injury, your best course of action is to call us and let us give you a consultation about what options you have available to you. VERONICA: Right. So I just called them to alert them and that’s part of the claim process, I guess. BEN: Yes, I’ve had that happen before. Correct. VERONICA: All right, thank you so much for explaining that to me. Construction accidents in Georgia and this really intricate law. Listen, folks, put on your hard hats, enter at your own risk because these guys are dropping knowledge left and right.
30:03	VERONICA: It’s Jeff Beaird. It’s Ben Copeland. And coming up, the Montlick closing argument is just ahead. Stay with us. VERONICA: Open on up the door and come on in.
30:33	VERONICA: Back to lawyers in the house with Montlick. I’m your host Veronica Waters, here with Ben Copeland and Jeff Beaird, talking about construction accidents in the law in Georgia. Don’t forget to subscribe to Lawyers in the House on your favorite podcast platform. You can also check us out on LawyersintheHouse.com, get us on demand audio or video. You can see our smiling faces. And you can brush up on all of this. Knowledge that these guys have been giving us today and see all our previous episodes too.
31:02	VERONICA: Also, at Lawyersinthehouse.com, you can ask a question. You have been waiting for this all hour long. It is the Montlick closing argument. Jeff and Ben, take it away. BEN: Well, I think after we’ve had our discussion today, what we’ve heard is that these construction accidents can be very difficult, they can be very complex.
31:25	BEN: And if you take anything away from today, it’s that regardless of whether you think that an employer or an insurance company is doing what they should or they’re telling you you don’t have a claim, you should contact us so that we can really talk to you about what your options are. We talked earlier today about the falling brick example. That’s a real case, or it’s based on a real case. And if that person didn’t call, they would have more than likely just had the workers compensation claim.
31:56	BEN: But because they contacted us, we have a dedicated workers compensation section, we were able to talk to them about the workers compensation injury that they had and notice that they also possibly had a personal injury claim as well that we were able to pursue and get a result on. So it’s very important that regardless of the status, that when you have an accident, you call us, even if it’s a family member of someone who’s passed away. Call us because you may not even know that you have a claim and you really need to explore that.
32:30	JEFF: Absolutely. I’ve represented the minor child of a man who fell to his death and the claim was completely denied, but we were able to get a positive result on that claim. So remember that we have the resources and we want to help you get the best outcome possible. That’s the most important thing. So call us and we will work to get you the best outcome possible at Montlick.
33:01
33:29	VERONICA: Thank you so much, Jeff Beaird and Ben Copeland, for being here to talk about construction accidents. This was so complex. But I know your clients are glad to have you on the job. I’m Veronica Waters. Lawyers in the House with Montlick will be back with you next week.

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