In New York, to qualify for workers’ compensation benefits, you must have been injured and the injury must have been suffered while you were performing job-related functions. Often, in the aftermath of a work-related injury, your employer or the workers’ compensation insurance company will attempt to deny or diminish your claim by alleging that it was not work-related, that it happened when you were off the clock. What if no one saw you get hurt? Do you have to have a witness in order for your injury to be proven to be job-related?
The answer is no—there’s no requirement that there be an eyewitness to a work-related injury. It may be a little bit more difficult to establish that the injury was caused by your job, but that’s often relatively easy to do. In cases where there is no direct evidence, the courts can rely on what is known as “circumstantial evidence” to come to a specific conclusion. For example, if you were seen entering your work station immediately before your injury and the witness did not observe anything wrong with you, but you were found moments later at your work station with a broken leg, there’s strong circumstantial evidence to suggest that your injury was work-related.
We actually represented the family of a man who died of a heart attack while at work. No one was there when it happened, but we were able to recover benefits for him because we could introduce evidence that convincingly demonstrated that his heart attack was work-related, brought on by stress.
What If No One Sees Your Work-Related Accident?
Experienced NYC | Queens | Bronx | Brooklyn Workers’ Compensation Lawyers
At Pyrros & Serres LLP, we provide comprehensive counsel to people with workers’ compensation and Social Security disability claims in Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and across the greater New York City metropolitan area. Because of our reputation for effective advocacy, many of our new clients come to us as referrals from clients and other lawyers.
To learn more about the full scope of our practice, see our practice area overview page.
Pyrros & Serres LLP
Queens | NYC | Brooklyn | Bronx Workers’ Compensation Attorneys
