While nearly every type of employee benefits from workers’ compensation coverage, there are certainly some industries or fields in which the benefits are more important or more commonly required than others. These fields of work tend to carry a great deal of inherent, daily occupational hazards. They generally involve work during which employees can suffer serious injuries if they are not always exercising the utmost care. One of the premiere examples of such an industry is construction.
While some employees work in cubicles or offices every day, construction workers often spend their workdays atop scaffolding, dozens of feet in the air, or they are working underneath floors or ceilings that are under construction and could collapse depending on the circumstances. While office workers can certainly be injured on the job, such injuries are far less likely to occur and generally involve extenuating circumstances such as ice on the stairs or water on the bathroom floor. Contrarily, construction workers face serious risk of injury every day just by showing up to work.
This is not to say that office work is inferior to construction work, or that one is inherently better than the other; it simply serves to show how construction workers are much more likely to need workers’ compensation benefits. The slightest error on a construction site, even if it is caused by someone else, can lead to serious injuries for construction workers.
Recently, New York placed caps on workers’ compensation benefits in an effort to ensure that workers only receive the compensation they need to cover the extents of their injuries. Unfortunately, the full extent of a workplace injury may not be apparent until well after a claim has to be filed, which is why legal representation can be so critical. An attorney can help you prove the extent of your injuries so that you receive the maximum amount of compensation to which you are entitled. Visit our webpage if you have suffered an injury on the job.
