Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation for Repetitive Use Injuries

Many people, including injured workers in Pennsylvania, don’t understand that a repetitive use injury is a viable injury to pursue under the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act. Many believe you need to have an acute, sudden, traumatic injury, such as falling off a ladder, to have a work-related injury. The truth is that repetitive work injuries are just as legitimate. If you need a Repetitive Work Injury Lawyer in Philadelphia, call us today.

What is a repetitive use injury?

If you work on an assembly line, and have to continuously reach your arms out for a product, lifting the product into a basket, for many hours per day, you are likely to injured your arms or shoulders or neck – maybe even your low back if you are bending too. This would be a repetitive work injury – something that happens over time, not just in one moment. Cardamone Law handles repetitive or overuse injuries for Workers’ Compensation.

A common example of a work-related repetitive injury

An example of a repetitive work injury would be doing lifting at work, over and over. After a few weeks or months, your low back is hurting. You go home and it subsides a bit, then you go back to work and start lifting again and your back pain comes back. Just because you didn’t hurt your work by lifting one box, causing you to fall to the floor, doesn’t mean you don’t have a work-related injury. Call our Philadelphia Repetitive Use Lawyers for assistance with your claim.

Can repetitive strains cause traumatic work-related injuries?

In some cases, there can be a combination of both repetitive use and a traumatic injury. If you have nagging back pain from lifting over and over at work, but then one day, you lift a box and it causes incredible pain, causing you to be unable to move much, well then, that’s a combination of both a repetitive use injury and a traumatic injury. Our top-rated Philadelphia Work Comp Lawyers will analyze your situation and decide how to pursue the case.

How can one determine the date of a repetitive use injury?

Notice will be an important issue. Remember, an injured worker has to give notice of his or her injury, to the employer, within 120 days of the injury, or the claim is barred forever. Technically, this means 120 days from the date of injury or the date the injured worker first thought his or her condition may be work-related. With repetitive trauma work injuries, we often use the last day of work as the date of injury. The idea here is that each day is a new injury and that the date of injury is therefore the last day of work. That will also extend the three year statute of limitations for filing a Claim Petition. Sometimes, however, the injured worker has a repetitive trauma injury but continues to work. It would be administratively too burdensome to keep changing the date of injury in this situation. As such, the date of injury is often the date the injury is reported to the employer, or when a doctor first examines the injured worker and diagnoses a work-related injury.

What are the benefits of hiring a PA Workers’ Compensation attorney at the earliest opportunity?

So, remember, you don’t have to be injured in some awful accident or crash. The daily wear and tear from doing something at work, over time, can also be a work injury that our Philadelphia Repetitive Trauma Lawyers can handle for you. If you aren’t sure about what to do in your case, it’s very important to call Cardamone Law. There are important time limits in Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation, and you don’t want to miss them by delaying a phone call to a lawyer. Fees are contingent so you pay us nothing out of your own pocket.