Frequently Asked Questions

Whenever an employee has suffered a personal injury while working that employee may not sue his or her employer: compensation for on-the-job personal injury is handled through the workers’ compensation law, which pays for medical treatment stemming from the injury and provides the injured employee with a portion of his or her wages while he or she is not working.

Unfortunately, there is no pat answer to this question, notwithstanding the “experts” declarations that they have one. There are so many factors that will come into play in a personal injury case that help determine what it is worth, including to what extent any of the various forms of compensatory damages — medical treatment, property loss, pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of enjoyment of life, loss of consortium — receive a dollar value and are awarded in order to help make the plaintiff “whole” again.

If you are injured while at work you are entitled to certain basic rights under New Jersey’s workers’ compensation law. Included among them are the right to medical treatment, the right to obtain payment, i.e., temporary disability, for lost time, and the right to obtain payment for any subsequent ill effects of the injury if those ill effects are determined to be permanent, which would be partial permanent disability. Temporary disability benefits are equivalent to 70 percent of wages up to an amount that has been set by the state.

The verbal threshold stems from the New Jersey law establishing a no-fault insurance system, passed in 1988 and since amended, that restricts a motorist’s right to sue for injuries sustained in an accident in exchange for a lower insurance premium.

Uninsured motorist coverage is a provision within a motorist’s insurance policy that comes into play whenever that motorist has been hit by another driver who does not have auto insurance. It is coupled with underinsured motorist coverage, which is relevant whenever a motorist is struck by another driver who does not have a maximum liability insurance that is adequate to cover the full amount of damage or injury that he or she has sustained.

This is one of the most common questions that clients ask of their attorneys, but it is one whose answer will vary from case to case, depending on the specific factors that are unique to a given case.