Workers’ Compensation Lawyers New York
The insurance company is paying me without prejudice. What does that mean?
Oftentimes your insurance carrier will issue payments to you without prejudice, and this means that this carrier is taking advantage of section 21a of the New York State Workers Compensation law. Your workers’ compensation lawyers in New York, such as the ones available at Polsky, Shouldice, and Rosen, PC are going to be able to help you answer any questions that you have regarding section 21a of the New York State workers compensation law.
What Is Section 21a?
So this type of law will allow the insurance carrier to pay you but not accept your case. Therefore your carrier is paying you a lower amount than you would receive if your case was accepted, and they are issuing payments to you on what they have deemed acceptable liability for your accident or injury. This is also used if your case has not been done because you are gathering information, your insurance carrier may issue payments so that the record of surrounding your Worker’s Compensation case can grow and provide them more information.
Therefore it is not necessarily a bad thing. This does not mean that you will have to pay back amounts to give you, even if the carrier later finds out it is not liable. This just means the carrier is not accepting liability because they are making these payments, and they may make these payments for a year. If the carrier sends a notice of termination within the year then these are going to be seen as admitting they are liable which will most likely move your case forward.
Sometimes the carrier will also give you treatment without prejudice, very similar to the payouts. This means that you might receive treatment, but your carrier is not admitting liability by allowing you to get this treatment. You will not be responsible for the treatment in the event that the carrier later disputed liability.
You should remember that the workers compensation system treats people like liars, because you must prove that you are actually injured or have developed a medical condition because of your job. It is to help people, however people have overused and misused it causing it to become much harder to actually file for workers compensation.
If you have questions about Worker’s Compensation laws in New York City you should reach out to the workers compensation lawyers in New York that you are currently working alongside. You should never work with an attorney who does not know the laws of the state you reside in and require filing in.
