Kentucky Third-Party Claims and Workers’ Compensation

If you are injured in an accident on the job in Kentucky, or you become ill as a result of your job, you may be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. In fact, workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy when you are injured on the job in most cases. What happens though if you are on the job and a third party causes, or contributes to, your injuries? In that case you may be able to file a third-party lawsuit in lieu of, or in addition to, your workers’ compensation claim.

The Kentucky workers’ compensation system is a no-fault system, meaning that you are not required to prove negligence on the part of your employer to be entitled to benefits. As long as you are a covered employee and the injury/illness occurred while you were within the scope of your employment you will be entitled to benefits. The workers’ compensation system was developed to provide workers with a simple method of securing benefits for workplace injuries that did not require lengthy, and often costly, litigation. The tradeoff for workers is that the workers’ compensation system limits the compensation available to an injured/ill worker.

Although proving fault is not necessary to qualify for workers’ compensation benefits, someone may actually be at fault. If the at-fault party is a third party, meaning someone other than your employer or co-worker, you may be entitled to file a third-party traditional personal injury lawsuit. A third-party lawsuit can be filed even if you qualify for workers’ compensation benefits if the basis for the lawsuit existed at the site at the same time.

This often happens in a construction accident where there are frequently several companies working at the site at any given time. A worker from another company could drop something, for example, or be operating a piece of machinery that causes your injuries. Because you were on the job at the time, you could be entitled to workers’ compensation benefits. However, since another worker’s negligence caused the accident, you may also have a valid personal injury lawsuit.

The biggest difference between the workers’ compensation system and a personal injury lawsuit is that a personal injury lawsuit allows you to recover non-economic damages. This is what people commonly refer to as “pain and suffering” compensation. Because the workers’ compensation system is a no-fault system, a claimant is not entitled to non-economic damages. Often, this leaves an injured worker to deal with the emotional trauma caused by the accident without any compensation for that trauma.

A personal injury lawsuit can also compensate the victim for expenses and losses not covered by workers compensation. Wage losses, for example are only paid at the rate of two-thirds of your average weekly wage, or AWW. Compensation from a third-party lawsuit could effectively fill in the gap between your workers’ compensation benefits and what you actually earned prior to the accident. In addition, your workers’ compensation benefits may not cover all of your medical expenses or out-of-pocket costs associated with your injuries or illness.

If you have been injured while on the job in Kentucky and you believe that a third party was responsible, in whole or in part, for your injuries, consult with an experienced Kentucky workers’ compensation attorney right away to determine what legal options are available to you.