Multiple Injuries

If you have injured more than one part of your body during the same workplace accident, you will be entitled to workers’ compensation for the entire resulting disability. This is also true if your original injury causes another part of your body to later become painful. For example, we have successfully represented workers who originally injured their left shoulder, which required them to use their right shoulder almost exclusively. Due to this overuse, the right shoulder then became painful and resulted in permanent injury. This type of overuse syndrome can make the right shoulder compensable. Another common example would be if you injure your foot or knee which causes you to limp and results in hip or back complaints. This can then be treated as a whole body injury resulting in additional compensation for the resulting back injury.

These cases, of course, are factually and legally very complex. Insurance companies frequently under-compensate injuries involving multiple areas of the body. It is, therefore, important that you consult an attorney experienced in the workers’ compensation system early on in this process. If you wait too long to have an attorney assist you in obtaining appropriate medical care, and framing the legal issues, it may well be too late to explore or pursue these very important benefits. The attorneys at Wertz & Dake are ready to represent you fully and obtain all of the workers’ compensation benefits to which you are entitled under Iowa law.