Construction site workers
Helping Working Families Through Difficult Times
American football game
Putting Lives Back on Track
American Supreme Court building in Washington DC
Reputation Earned From Exceptional Results

by

Often times, injured workers who are receiving Massachusetts workers’ compensation benefits are mailed a form titled “Form 105 – Agreement to Extend the 180 Day Payment Without Prejudice Period.”  Workers’ compensation insurers may  send this form to an injured worker who has not yet retained an attorney in hopes of getting the unrepresented injured workers to sign the form without fully understanding the ramifications of doing so.  It is usually sent to the injured worker during the 3rd to 5th month of disability following a work injury.

Signing the Agreement to Extend 180 Day Payment Without Prejudice Period form sent to you by the workers’ compensation insurer can have an extremely negative impact on your claim.
Insurance companies will send you this form under the guise that they are doing you a favor and agreeing to pay you for another 180 days, however by signing this form you are giving up legal rights and you may expose yourself to allowing the insurer to legally terminate benefits and put you in the position where you could go many months with no benefits while you fight the insurance company in court.  In order to fully understand why singing this form can have negative consequences for an injured worker, it would be helpful to explain exactly what the 180 Day Payment Without Prejudice Period is.

THE FIRST 180 DAYS AFTER DISABILITY BEGINS

If the insurer has commenced benefits timely, namely within 14 days of notice, the insurer is allowed to stop payments to the employee without obtaining approval of the DIA or the consent of the employee. However the insurer is required to give the employee seven(7) day written notice of their intent to stop benefits. The insurer’s written notice of termination must state their reasons and advise the employee of his or her rights to file a claim for further benefits. Continue reading

by

Employees who have been hurt on the job in a Massachusetts workplace may be eligible for benefits through the state workers’ compensation system. This is a form of no-fault insurance that most employers are required by law to provide. It is designed to avoid the need for employees who suffer from job-related accidents or illnesses to bring a personal injury lawsuit against their employers. Benefits available through the workers’ compensation system may extend to medical expenses for the treatment of the job-related injury as well as wage loss and, in some cases, additional programs like worker retraining.Massachusetts workers typically can establish that they qualify for workers’ compensation benefits if they have been unable to perform their job duties for at least five days because of the work-related accident or illness. In some cases, this can consist of an exacerbation of a pre-existing condition that originated outside the job environment but was worsened there. There are several types of benefits for which workers may be eligible. These include permanent and total disability benefits, temporary and total disability benefits, and partial disability benefits.

Permanent and total disability benefits may be available under Section 34A of the Massachusetts workers’ compensation law for workers who have suffered from serious harm on the job. They must be unable to perform any type of work, including the duties of the position that they held at the time of the event precipitating the accident or illness. By contrast, temporary and total disability benefits are provided for people who are unable to hold a job only for a limited period. Partial disability benefits are likely appropriate for someone who can perform some job duties, although not to the same extent as before the injury.

Continue reading

by

As we turn the clocks forward in anticipation for spring, it will not be easy for Massachusetts’s residents to forget the past few wintry months. This certainly has been a winter to remember here in the New England region, and not for the most pleasant of reasons. Certain areas of Massachusetts have seen over 100 inches of snowfall in less than a month’s time, and the many difficulties it has caused have been well documented. In order to keep up with the rapid accumulation, companies and officials have been rushing to clear snow from roofs and roadways. Thus, Massachusetts’ workers have been exposed to dangerous working conditions that have led to devastating, and sometimes fatal, consequences.  Continue reading

by

In re Kelbe’s Case, the Appeals Court of Massachusetts presented a decision that provides an adequate summary of the “going and coming” rule in worker’s compensation cases, which generally disallows monetary recovery for injured employees. The court’s opinion began with a review of the general rule, which states that workers’ compensation is not usually available to compensate employees who are injured during the course of travel to and from work. However, injuries that occur on the employer’s premises are compensable, as are injuries that occur where the employer owns the right of passage, such as a parking garage. Other exceptions to this general rule include, when the employee’s regular duties involved traveling away from the employer’s premises; when the accident occurred the employee was traveling home from an off-site work-related meeting or social event for the employer; or when the vehicle the employee was in at the time of the accident was provided by the employer for the employee’s travel. Continue reading

by

The injured employee in the case of James McDonald v. Brand Energy Services, Inc. was a union laborer who had worked and been injured at work several times dating back to 1991.  In fact, the employee had injured his back four separate times prior to this particular work injury.   With each of the four prior work-related back injuries, the employee received lump sum settlements.  His last injury in which he received a lump sum settlement came in the year 2001.  Approximately three years after his last work related injury he returned to work against the advice of several doctors in 2004.  While employed he did not complete heavy-duty tasks but he did cope with daily pain by taking pain medication while completing lighter assignments. Continue reading

by

  Beginning April 1, 2015 Massachusetts will extend employment protections to domestic workers.   The Domestic Workers Bill of Rights will create new legal obligations for individuals or families who employ domestic workers including nannies, housekeepers, caregivers, and other domestic workers.   The new law will create a number of new rights that will improve conditions for domestic workers such as a statutory right to privacy and how a live-in domestic worker may be terminated.   Also, the Domestic Workers Bill of Rights definitively clarified that some existing state laws do extend to domestic workers.   Included among existing Massachusetts laws that will extend to domestic workers are Massachusetts’ workers compensation benefits. Continue reading

by

In September of 2014, Massachusetts received a grant from the U.S. Department of Labor to enforce activities centered on worker misclassification detection.   The Massachusetts wage and hour laws allow workers who have been misclassified as independent contractors to bring lawsuits seeking monetary compensation against their employers.  Those employers who have wrongly classified their employees as independent contractors are obligated to provide workers’ compensation benefits to those misclassified employees who are injured during the course of their employment.

The Massachusetts independent contractor statute makes it difficult for an employer to classify a worker as an independent contractor.  Employers who misclassify an employee as an independent contractor may be subject to triple damages in accordance with Massachusetts wage and hour laws. Continue reading

by

The new year brought  new changes to the United States Department of Labor, Occupational Health and Safety Administrations’ (“OSHA”) work injury reporting requirements for employers.  Prior to January 1, 2015, employers were required to report fatalities occurring at the workplace and incidents that required three or more employees to be hospitalized.  Beginning on January 1, 2015, OSHA now requires employers to report any injuries or illnesses that occur at the workplace and require only one employee to be hospitalized.  The employer of the injured worker must report the work injury or illness to OSHA within 24 hours of their first knowledge of the hospitalization. Continue reading

by

  Perhaps the most common reason why injured workers seek out a workers’ compensation attorney is because their employer’s workers’ compensation insurer is refusing to authorize and pay for medical treatment that their treating physician is recommending.  Massachusetts workers’ compensation benefits provide for 100% payment of any and all medical treatment that is deemed to be reasonable, necessary and causally related to a work injury.  However, it is very common for workers’ compensation insurance companies to  either deny medical treatment or intentionally not respond to your doctor’s requests for medical treatment.  One possible reason for this is because many injured workers give up, try to use their health insurance (so the workers’ comp insurer doesn’t pay) and never get a lawyer to guide them through this difficult process.  Quite simply, although workers compensation insurers have laws and rules that they must follow in administering claims, they will do everything within those laws and rules (and sometimes outside of them) to frustrate injured workers so that they won’t seek medical treatment that they require. Continue reading

by

OSHA has completed its investigation into the April 2014 crane accident in Bourne, Massachusetts that took the lives of two electrical workers.  Two linemen, John Loughran, Jr. and Michael Boyd, both age 34, were tragically killed when the crane truck from which they were working tipped over, causing them to fall more than 150 feet to their death.  Both men were working for Massachusetts Bay Electrical Corp.

In late September, OSHA announced the findings of its investigation into the incident and the fines levied on Mass Bay Electric Corp.  OSHA, stating that the accident was entirely preventable, has fined the employer $168,000 for two willful violations of workplace safety standards.  OSHA found that Massachusetts Bay Electric Corp. did not refer to or use readily available and necessary information that would have allowed the work to be conducted safely, resulting in the loss of two lives. Continue reading

Justia Lawyer Rating
Contact Information
10 High St #401
Boston, MA 02110
Phone: (617) 426-9797
375 Gorham St
Lowell, MA 01852
Phone: (978) 703-8303
45 Braintree Hill Office Pk #303
Braintree, MA 02184
Phone: (617) 472-3900

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Please do not include any confidential or sensitive information in a contact form, text message, or voicemail. The contact form sends information by non-encrypted email, which is not secure. Submitting a contact form, sending a text message, making a phone call, or leaving a voicemail does not create an attorney-client relationship.

Copyright © 2024, Carney, Rezendes & Crowley, LLC
JUSTIA Law Firm Blog Design