Statesville Work-Related Back Injury Lawyer

Statesville, North Carolina, is home to many hardworking individuals and working-class families who get up every day and contribute to the national economy in pursuit of the American dream. With folks working long hours at physically intensive jobs, workplace accidents and back pain due to repetitive stress are, unfortunately, a part of life for working people. A Statesville work-related back injury lawyer can mean a world of benefits for those in this situation.

When the worst happens, and you find yourself injured in the course of doing your job, it’s crucial to remember that you have rights. One of these is the right to pursue compensation through the North Carolina workers’ compensation system. Your payout for a workplace injury to your back or another area can cover medical expenses, lost wages, pain and suffering, and other costs associated with the injury.

If you have been injured in Statesville, NC, or the surrounding areas, you will want to see to your own immediate medical needs first and then call M. Reid Acree, Jr., Attorney at Law. Our firm has a sterling reputation throughout the Statesville area, and we can offer powerful legal solutions that will allow you to pursue the maximum amount of compensation from all possible sources, whether that involves workers’ compensation or a personal injury lawsuit.

We are fully committed to ensuring our clients receive appropriate recompense for any injury suffered in the workplace and steering their cases to the optimal outcomes so that they can recover from their injury and make plans for moving beyond this challenging and traumatic time. We handle all of the detail-oriented legal procedures so that you can focus on things like attending physical therapy or receiving chiropractic care—in other words, healing.

North Carolina Workplace Injuries and Back Injuries: Legal Context

Labor laws, workers’ comp policies, and personal injury statutes represent a complex web of overlapping and interconnected rules in the State of North Carolina. Here are some of the laws that might be relevant to your workplace injury situation:

• Occupational Safety and Health Act of North Carolina: North Carolina General Assembly Chapter 95, commonly known as OSHANC, sets forth safety standards for North Carolina workplaces in an effort to prevent injuries and illnesses.
• NC Workers’ Compensation Act: This is the state law that will be applicable to most people trying to get compensation for on-the-job injuries. The law mandates that all employers must carry workers’ compensation insurance and provides a framework for employees to file claims.
• Federal Employees’ Compensation Act: Since workers’ compensation is organized at a state-by-state level, there is a law that provides workers’ compensation benefits to federal government employees, including the 40,000+ who call North Carolina home.
• Occupational Safety and Health Act (OSHA): This federal law regulates workplace conditions and national safety standards. North Carolina uses an OSHA-approved State Plan, so many of our workplace regulations are in line with federal OSHA standards.
• Family and Medical Leave Act: The FMLA provides eligible employees with almost 1/4 of a calendar year of protected annual leave. Although the leave is unpaid, it can be an important tool when someone is recovering from a serious back injury and physically or emotionally unable to return to work for an extended period.
• Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act: As a coastal state, workplace injuries in North Carolina are sometimes covered under the federal LHWCA, which provides financial and medical support for qualifying maritime workers, whether they’re injured on the water or while servicing a ship in drydock.

If you have experienced a workplace injury or are suffering serious back pain due to work activities but are unsure how to pursue a claim for compensation, you’ve come to the right place. Please do not hesitate to reach out to the offices of M. Reid Acree, Jr. for powerful, practical legal advice.

Common on-the-Job Back Injuries

Back injuries are all too common in our fast-paced, high-demand American workplaces. Per the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, around one of every five workplace injuries, or 1 million annual injuries, directly involve the back. Of those 1 million injuries, the majority involve lifting, and a whopping 80% involve the lower back specifically.

From manufacturing personnel to physically demanding service workers, retail clerks spending long hours on their feet, and office workers stuck in a desk chair all day, it’s important to be aware that just about anyone working in Statesville, NC, is potentially susceptible to some form of back injury, and not just folks with highly physical roles.

What do these high percentages tell us? First and foremost, the working people of North Carolina deserve better accommodations, equipment, and workplace standards to keep them safe and healthy.

North Carolina employers could certainly do more to invest in robust initiatives to support the spinal health of their employees through ergonomic equipment and re-training, but until that day comes, the renowned and reputable workers’ compensation attorney M. Reid Acree, Jr. is available to help you pursue compensation for your on the job back injuries.

Over 25 years ago, Acree made a life-changing decision to step away from his career as a corporate attorney and open a practice focused entirely on representing the working people of North Carolina instead.

The innovative, client-focused model of legal services that was born of Acree’s consequential career choice is designed to empower you throughout every phase of the process with custom-tailored legal strategies, empathetic advice, and aggressive in-court representation when necessary.

A workplace back injury that qualifies for workers’ compensation can come in many forms. Common ones include:

• Scoliosis: A spinal condition typified by a spinal column that is curved to one side. Some people have scoliosis from birth, but it can potentially be made worse by workplace activities.
• Disc Herniation: The soft central tissue of a spinal disc can shift or distort to the point that it protrudes through its outer casing, resulting in severe back pain.
• Sprains and Strains: Your spine is not the only part of your back that can be damaged. Overexerting ligaments and tendons can also result in very painful and debilitating injuries.
• Pinched Nerves: This occurs when excessive pressure is applied to a nerve by surrounding tissue like bone or muscle. In the context of back injuries, a pinched nerve can also be caused by a herniated disc. Pinched nerves can result in shooting pain and numbness that travels beyond your back and into your legs or other extremities.
• Fractures: It’s important to remember that your spine is not a single, long bone but essentially a stack of individual joints. The potential for fractures and other issues is, therefore, relatively high.

This wide range of injury types is paired with an equally vast array of possible accident types. Some of the more common causes behind workplace back injuries in North Carolina include:

• Lifting – Lifting something too heavy for you can result in immediate, acute injuries like sprains and herniated discs, while the repetitive lifting of lighter objects over the course of months or years can also result in injuries and severe pain.
• Slip and Fall Injuries – A slip and fall is a common type of personal injury that is exactly what it sounds like. Falling onto your back on a hard surface, such as a concrete warehouse floor, can potentially result in several of the injury types described above.
• Repetitive Motion – Jobs that require the worker to repeatedly or continuously perform a specific bodily motion are often associated with “wear and tear” types of injuries.
• Vehicle Crashes – Cars and heavy machinery are used in many job sites in North Carolina, from forklifts inside warehouse settings to cars that crisscross the state visiting clients. When you’re injured in a vehicle in the course of doing your job, you may be eligible for workers’ compensation.

Workers’ Compensation or Personal Injury?

When you’ve been injured due to someone else’s negligence or malfeasance, you may be unsure of how to proceed with pursuing damages from the responsible party. A personal injury lawsuit and a worker’s compensation claim are two similar concepts that are distinct from one another in some extremely important procedural ways:

• Personal Injury Lawsuit – This takes place when a private citizen sues some other entity for injuring them, either deliberately or through a legally actionable level of negligence. The defendant might be another private individual who hit them with a car or a retail store chain they were shopping at when they fell on a wet floor with no caution sign.

  Employers can only be sued when they can be found to have intentionally caused your back injury, but you can make this kind of claim against third parties and other employees who may have caused your work-related accident.

• Workers’ Compensation – If you’re injured in the course of doing your job, you do not need to file a lawsuit at all and can instead pursue compensation through North Carolina’s no-fault workers’ comp system. The no-fault nature of the system means that you and your employer can bypass the legal process of assigning blame for the incident, streamlining your access to the financial support you need.

M. Reid Acree, Jr.: Top Statesville, NC, Workers’ Comp and Back Injury Attorney

Whether it comes in the form of a persistent ache or debilitating spinal trauma, back injuries need to be taken seriously on both a medical front and a legal one. Quality legal representation for the working people of Statesville, NC, is available now. Contact our main offices to set up a consultation and take the first step to securing the financial support you are entitled to for what you’ve suffered.