10 Common Mistakes People Make in a Workers’ Compensation Case

What is workers’ compensation in Missouri? In Missouri, the Missouri Workers’ Compensation Law is your exclusive and
only way to get medical care and disability payments or wage replacement benefits for your injury, as well as it is also
the exclusive remedy to get a lump sum disability payment at the end of your case, and it is the exclusive remedy for
the employer too, so it is the only avenue in which the employer is entitled to compensate you and pay for you.

So, I’ve written a book on workers’ compensation in Missouri. It’s
here. I printed out a copy. You can find it on our website, www.burgerlaw.com. It answers a lot of
questions that folks have about workers’ compensation, including Chapter 1 which is, “What is Workers’ Compensation?”
So, it’s a state law that governs it. If you make a claim under workers’ compensation, you’re not suing your employer,
you’re making an administrative law claim. You file a claim for compensation for acute work-related injury, and then the
administrative law judge in that process governs it.

We talk a lot more about it and its exclusivity, meaning that’s the only thing. It’s good and bad. The good part is that
you don’t have to prove negligence of your employer and your negligence doesn’t count if I make a mistake and I injure
myself on the job, I still have to get paid, and it gives me my medical, and it gives me Temporary Total Disability
payments, ⅔ of my average weekly wage while I’m off-work, and it gives me a lump sum settlement at the end of the case.
What’s bad about it? The employer controls the medical. They get to choose the doctors. You don’t get paid for pain and
suffering.

The disability calculation is based on a framework. It’s kind of arbitrary: Number of weeks per part of your body times
your weekly wage times the number of weeks for different part of your body, and then your weekly wage, how was that
determined. There’s a lot of issues, there’s a lot of nuance. And what happens is, many times it’s the doctors who get a
lot of work comp business on the part of the employer, tend to rate you low or tend to try to send you back to work
quicker, and so those are challenges in work comp.

So those are most of the things that, we talk about that in our book, but it is the only remedy, and if an employee wins
their workers’ compensation claim they’re entitled to their medical, their past disability benefits and a lump sum
disability payment at the end of the case. So, if you like to meet with us, talk to us for free about your case, give us
a call at 314-542-2222. Contact us. We’re at our Burger Law website. Email us at [email protected]. Download this book; that will answer a lot of your
questions. We’ll meet with you for free and answer your workers’ compensation questions for free. Thank you.