Workers’ Compensation
Stone & Johnson workers’ compensation attorneys recognize their clients’ success in today’s business climate requires the efficient management of their clients’ exposure to workers’ compensation claims. This requires not only experience and excellence in their clients’ litigation needs, but also the short and long term management of their employees’ disabilities. Workers’ compensation litigation is unique is this regard: litigants must not only defend themselves from claims, they must, under certain circumstances, work with claimants to mitigate future exposure. Stone & Johnson attorneys possess 50 years of experience litigating and managing workers’ compensation claims. This experience has exposed them to diverse disputes, enabling them to develop aggressive and innovative strategies that efficiently and economically resolve claims.
The firm’s experience has proven “prevention is more cost-effective than litigation,” and so the firm regularly offers group seminars, individual instruction and continuous updates on this ever-evolving area of law, for both insurers and insureds, to assist their risk management planning. Furthermore we never neglect related legal requirements placed upon employers that might affect their workers’ compensation exposure, including Title VII, the ADA, the FMLA, HIPAA, Medicare recovery regulations, and now the ACA. Costs result not just from claims arising under these laws, but also from poor preparation and management of these risks.
Closely related to workers’ compensation exposure, yet distinctly different in litigation requirements, are those cases which involve an employer’s civil liability to its injured employees. These Employers’ Liability (EL) claims – also called 1(b) claims from the insurance policy section that covers them – involve working through the circuit court system in addition to the state workers’ compensation system. Under many circumstances, a single attorney can handle both aspects of the claim, which not only lowers the cost of defense but also helps attain the ultimate goal of the lowest total impact to the bottom line. Attorneys at Stone & Johnson have the expertise to litigate both types of claims, and have pioneered settlement strategies and tactics involving the joint resolution of these multiple claims/multiple jurisdictions situations.
