I got the honor of helping a veteran South Carolina teacher get the workers’ compensation insurance company to stop ignoring her case. Becky got hurt working at school when she tripped on a computer cord under her desk as she got up to help a student, slamming onto her left knee, fracturing it, and tearing her medial meniscus.
As bad as it sounded, the fracture turned out to be the least of her concerns. It was a knee stress fracture that basically healed on its own, with a little help from a steroid shot. The torn meniscus was another matter. She required an operation to fix it. Afterward, she continued to struggle with serious pain to the point her surgeon ordered two months of knee viscosupplementation shots to lubricate the joint artificially.
Luckily, workers’ comp paid for all her treatment. But when it came time for them to pay a settlement for the permanent damage to her knee, the insurance company vanished into thin air.
By the time she hired me, she'd been done with treatment for nearly two years. We got to work immediately, gathering her medical records to assess the course of her treatment. I scheduled a phone call with her surgeon to develop the key aspects of her treatment. In the discussion, he promised to fill out a workers’ comp form 14B setting forth her impairment rating, permanent restrictions, and future medical care. That form often greases the wheels for a settlement. The surgeon proved a man of his word, and we soon had the 14B.
Meanwhile, my involvement inspired the insurance company to get back to work. They hired a workers’ comp defense lawyer. Once I had all the medical evidence in the case and input from Becky on the permanent effects of the injury on her ability to live and work, I sent opposing counsel a demand letter containing our settlement offer and the reasons for it.
Just seven months after she hired me, we finalized the settlement of $36,000. Becky was glad it was finally over, and she was pleased with the result. I'm thankful I got to help one of our best and brightest stop getting ignored by a workers’ compensation insurance company and bring her case to a successful close.
