What You Need to Know About Suing Your Employer for Pain and Suffering
Employees may experience hardship at work. Here’s what you need to know about suing an employer for pain and suffering.
An employee may sue their employer for the pain and suffering they experience due to a workplace injury. The employee must sue the employer as part of a personal injury complaint as pain and suffering is separate from workers’ compensation. An employee may sue the third party for pain and suffering experienced at the workplace.
What Are Pain and Suffering?
Pain and suffering in workers’ compensation refer to the physical injuries or mental duress an employee experiences due to a workplace injury.
Pain and suffering is an umbrella term that contains several conditions an employee might face from an injury, including:
- The physical pain of a broken limb,
- Aches and pains,
- Panic attacks,
- Weakness,
- Emotional distress, and
- Other conditions arise from physical injuries that involve suffering.
Suing for Pain and Suffering
An employee may not request compensation for the pain and suffering they experience due to a workplace accident under worker’s compensation. However, an employee may file a personal injury complaint with a local court. The employee may seek a settlement to cover the damages for pain and suffering not included in a workers’ compensation claim.
To seek out a settlement or damages, the employee must experience pain and suffering due to a physical injury experienced at the workplace. The pain and suffering may occur due to physical pain or emotional duress.
The employee should have evidence addressing the workplace accident and determining what went wrong. The employee may demonstrate the case as negligence, recklessness, or similar means to the court. The employee may need to prove the pain and suffering they experience to the court through physical evidence, medical records, and expert medical testimony.
The court will then review all evidence and determine the value of the damages an employee is entitled to for their pain and suffering. The court may measure the damages using a per-day rate or a multiplier of economic damages. The per-day rate assigns a monetary value to each day the employee experienced pain and suffering, while the multiplier of economic damages may double or triple the amount an employee receives from a workers’ compensation claim.
Suing Third Parties for Pain and Suffering
An employee has the option to recover compensation for pain and suffering due to a work-related injury from third parties who are not their employer.
An employee may file personal injury lawsuits related to the distress against:
- Product manufacturers, if a defective product or component injured the employee,
- Substance manufacturers if a toxic substance or injured the employee
- Other employees at the job who caused the injury.
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