When people talk of personal injury lawsuits, most of the time it is either a slip-and-fall case or a car accident. The next most common case involves medical negligence and lawsuits against doctors. What you rarely hear about are some types of work-related cases that do not involve losing a finger or a limb. These lesser known cases can still be heard in court with a personal injury attorney's help. Here are four of those lesser-known cases and some things about them that may surprise you.
Vibration White Finger
Vibration white finger sounds like some sort of bizarre disease you get after surviving an atomic blast. In all actuality, it is a nervous disorder that is caused by constantly exposing your fingers to repetitive and forceful vibrations. One such example is the frequent operation of a jackhammer on road construction. Someone who frequently does the manual work on breaking up a road with a jackhammer is bound to develop vibration white finger.
What is surprising is that you can sue your employer for this disorder. It seems that employers know that this type of work injury is preventable, and that those that develop it from the type of work they do can prevent it. Employers who do nothing to stop this are considered irresponsible and negligent in their protection of their employees; hence, the lawsuits.
Contact Dermatitis
Contact dermatitis are instances where your bare skin touched something that caused your skin to flare up, have a reaction, or become extremely itchy or painful. There are plenty of careers involving the outdoors, as well as jobs in factories, where the outdoor plants and indoor chemicals can cause this. Most of the time, people would just treat the problem and let it go.
The surprising thing about this type of lawsuit occurs when the reaction is bad enough to miss work and/or cost you a lot of money. You may seek out financial compensation via worker's compensation and be denied. Then you would sue for compensation instead. Suing over contact dermatitis is shaky ground, unless you can prove that your employer intentionally sent you into a grove of poison ivy, or failed to seal a leak in a pipe or tank that holds a chemical substance known to cause contact dermatitis.
Repetitive Strain Injuries
Repetitive strain injuries are the direct result of repetitiously doing the same thing to the point where you become disabled. Most often, administrative assistants who spend all day typing, five days a week, over the course of a decade or more (sometimes less, too), develop carpal tunnel syndrome. There are other repetitive strain injuries, often involving back, knee, shoulder, or elbow problems too.
The bizarre part of this type of lawsuit is that it borders on the question of why. Clearly, you would know the dangers of your job, and what repetitive strain injuries can develop. Yet, you would sue your employer? The reason is because your employer also knows that OSHA would require that employers provide adequate time off from a job to reduce the strain injury and allow your body to heal, and your employer has not complied.
Occupational Stress
Americans are overworked. This is just a fact. They take far fewer vacations and less time off from work. They work too much and rest too little. The vast majority of Americans suffer from occupational stress, and you can sue for this problem, too.
If Americans are so overworked, why do they not just take shorter breaks rather than file lawsuits against their employers for occupational stress? Well, technically, you can only sue for occupational stress in very specific situations. For example, if an employer forces you to work back to back shifts for more than three days straight (which is illegal), or he/she tells you that you have to work with someone who has sexually harassed you. That creates occupational stress that you cannot manage, and you are entitled to compensation under the law.
Share17 October 2017
It can be hard to know what to do to protect yourself legally in the immediate aftermath of a car accident. You’re liable to be disoriented or in shock, you may be injured, and you’re surely worried about your passenger or the other driver. At least, that’s how I felt. The thing is, the things you say and do in the immediate aftermath of an accident may affect a legal case later. Depending on who’s at fault and what the laws are in your state, you may want to sue the other driver for damages, or you may find yourself being sued. My blog is designed to give you tips for a car accident lawsuit, no matter which side you find yourself on.