Workers’ Compensation, FMLA and ADA

August 11, 2020

Video Transcript

Hello and welcome to Legal Tip Tuesday, a feature of QuatriniRafferty that you’ve all become familiar with. Today, It’s Vince Quatrini and Nick Kennedy here to talk about a legal issue that is of concern to any injured worker. My part here at QuatriniRafferty is workers’ compensation. I represent the injured worker to obtain lost wages and medical benefits after they have suffered an injury at work. But what we’ve done over the years that our law firm is recognize that it’s not just one legal remedy that’s available to you or that you should explore but many and so we have built a law firm around all of those legal actions that may be important to an injured worker. In addition to the workers’ compensation benefits, we have federal rights.

Workers’ compensation state right, it doesn’t protect your job. Many people think it does, so back to the point. Workers’ comp takes care of lost wages, a check and medical benefits for whatever medical bills you have, but you could not have a job to go back to and that’s where Nick Kennedy comes into the picture here at our firm. Nick. And as Vince said, that’s what makes QR unique in the sense that we’re not just going to address your workers’ comp issue. We want to make sure that your job is protected because there are a lot of legal issues that can arise if you get injured at work, if you can’t return or if you have a disability as a result of that injury, your employer may try to eliminate your position and so if we just look at the workers’ comp side of things that’s not addressing the whole picture. So, my goal is to look at your federal rights, including under the Family and Medical Leave Act and your rights under the Americans with Disabilities Act. Because those laws provide job protection if you’re eligible for them and they can protect your job and they can require your employer to give you accommodations so that you can return to work and enable you to continue doing your job. It’s our goal to make sure that. Job is protected so that you’re receiving workers’ comp benefits, you don’t have to worry about that part of things. What does the FMLA protect If I’m off work at with an injury?

The FMLA protects your job for 12 weeks of leave, so my job or any job? Your specific job. It’s meant to allow you to recover from what’s called a serious health condition, and that’s a pretty broad term. But if you’re injured at work, it’s likely that you’ll fall within that protection as long as your employer is large enough, meaning 50 or more employees within a 75-mile radius of your worksite. So, if I work for a company that has less than 50 employees, FMLA is not available to me. That’s right. And so, after 12 weeks, where does it leave me? Well after 12 weeks, then your FMLA rights are over and that’s where the Americans with Disabilities Act becomes so important because what the Americans with Disabilities Act does is it provides an injured employees, employees who have disabilities, with reasonable accommodations and one reasonable accommodation is the possibility for extended leave beyond what the FMLA provides. There’s a lot of legal decisions that talk about it and they can provide you with some extra leave beyond those 12 weeks. It’s important that we speak as soon as you’re trying to be approved for FMLA leave or leave under the Americans with Disabilities Act because it’s a complicated area of the law that we can help you with. So, that’s the short version. You’re welcome to give us a call for the longer version of both your rights under workers’ compensation, FMLA, ADA. We have long-term disability protection here, Social Security disability, veteran’s disability, and when that’s all done. We’ll write your will for you so that you have a lifetime protection.

This is Vince Quatrini, some think I’m the favorite Quatrini, QuatriniRafferty and Nick Kennedy. Thanks for joining us today for Legal Tip Tuesday, have a great day.