Construction Accident Compensation

Answer:

I’m often asked by clients, “What sorts of things can I recover for in a Virginia construction accident?” The first thing that I usually tell my clients about what they can recover in a Virginia construction accident is whether or not this is a workers’ compensation claim only or whether it might be a workers’ compensation claim with a possible third-party claim that’s outside the workers’ compensation umbrella as it’s often referred to. In the first case, workers’ compensation will award you two-thirds of your average weekly wage for up to 500 weeks of compensation which is almost 10 years. It’s a very limited period of time of wage loss recovery. That two-thirds of your average weekly wage is intended to give you more or less what your net take-home pay would be for that 500 weeks of compensation.The other thing that you’re entitled to recover is lifetime medical benefits. Lifetime medical benefits will go for the rest of your actual life, but they only apply to actual injury-related medical care. The last thing that you can often recover for is what’s known as a “permanent partial” or “permanent total” disability rating. In those types of cases where you’ve been permanently injured, you can take either from a schedule of different body parts, a set number of weeks of your compensation at average weekly wage rate, and/or you can recover possibly a lump sum settlement from the workers’ compensation carrier or insurance company. In those cases, they will also cut off your rights to future medical benefits, so you want to make sure that you include in the value of that lump sum settlement both what your anticipated future medical expense is as well as your future wage loss claim.