Can’t Work After a DC Hotel Accident?
An injury at a DC hotel can cause a multitude of problems. You may have suffered a debilitating injury caused by a hotel’s negligence. Due to that injury, you may be unable to care for your family. If you are a parent, you can no longer feed your children food due to your pain. You may have to rely more on your spouse, which burdens them. Time at the doctor and away from your family, friends, and hobbies is an unfair burden on you when a hotel causes the injury. Things become even worse when you cannot work. When you can’t work after a DC hotel accident, your job performance is set back, your likelihood of promotion is potentially diminished, and you are not getting paid. This lack of payment is critical when you have mounting medical expenses.
If you can’t work after a DC hotel accident, the financial strain due to lost wages can make your circumstances even more challenging. This makes understanding your rights crucial. You must understand how to ensure your right to compensation for lost wages. At the start of every case, we advise clients to follow these steps before missing any time from work. If you do not follow these critical steps, you may forfeit your right to lost wages from the defendant. Here, we describe the hotel injuries that lead to time off work, how to recover compensation for lost wages, and strategies for managing financial stress while you cannot work. While it is imperative that you closely follow these strategies, the role of a hotel injury lawyer often determines how much you will win in settlement or at trial.
Hotel Injuries That Lead to Time Off Work
Any hotel accident that causes substantial injury can lead to time off work. Ultimately, your doctor will excuse you from work if they believe you are at risk of aggravating your injury or slowing your recovery. Of course, some hotel injuries are more likely to lead to severe injury that requires time off from work than others.
Slips, Trips, and Falls
If you can’t work after a DC hotel accident due to a slip, trip, or fall, we must examine the severity of your injury and whether we can establish liability by the hotel. If you slip, trip, or fall, the odds are that it is due to a slippery surface. However, a slippery surface does not necessarily mean the hotel is liable. The hotel must have been negligent in its maintenance of the slippery surface. If we can establish liability, then you are entitled to damages. Damages for injuries from a slip, trip, or fall can include lost wages if your doctor excuses you from work due to the injury. That excusal by the doctor by no means establishes liability. Rather, it holds that if we can prove liability, you are entitled to lost wages as part of your compensation.
Elevator and Stair Accidents
Our hotel injury lawyers can assist if you can’t work after a DC hotel accident due to an elevator or stair accident. Elevators malfunction for all sorts of reasons. Typically, the injury is sustained by older plaintiffs who lose their balance more quickly. As in any personal injury matter, we must be able to establish that the hotel acted negligently in their maintenance of the hotel. Even if they rely on an elevator maintenance company to maintain their elevator, the hotel may still be liable. Suppose that you injure your hip on an elevator or stair. In that case, you may be unable to work if it limits your ability to work.
If you are a server at a bar or restaurant and cannot walk from table to table because of your hip injury, you are entitled to compensation. But what if you can never work again because of your hip injury? You are entitled to compensation for a loss of future earning capacity. As DC hotel injury lawyers, we must consider your future damages beyond the date of settlement or judgment in addition to the past damages you have already suffered, such as your medical expenses and pain and suffering.
Fitness Center Injuries
It is easy to injure yourself while in a fitness center at a hotel. Of course, these injuries often are not due to the hotel’s negligence. But, if you can’t work after a DC hotel accident because of a fitness center injury, there are methods of establishing liability. For example, if the equipment is improperly maintained, it is not apparent that using the machine is hazardous. We can prove liability if the hotel knows or should know of the dangerous equipment. There are countless injuries you can suffer in a hotel fitness center in DC. Most commonly, our clients suffer back injuries in the fitness center.
If a piece of equipment is improperly maintained and injures your back, you may be unable to work for months. Countless jobs require a healthy back. If you are in construction and hurt your back, you may be unable to work indefinitely. Hire the help of a skilled DC hotel injury attorney to fight for your right to lost wages.
Understanding Compensation for Lost Wages
Compensation for lost wages when you can’t work after a DC hotel accident is simple. First, we must prove that the hotel acted negligently and that its negligence is the proximate cause of your injury. Then, we must establish that you are injured. If your doctor excuses you from work because of your injury within a reasonable degree of medical certainty, then you should be entitled to lost wages. Of course, the defense’s legal team may call their expert witness to testify that you could have worked despite your injuries. At that point, it becomes a battle of which witness the jury believes more.
Next, we must value your lost wages. When we settle a case, we consider past, current, and future damages. Thus, we consider all lost wages leading up to the settlement agreement. In most cases, this is sufficient as there is no future damage for wage compensation. However, in some more severe cases, we must consider a loss of future earning capacity. If your job performance has suffered as a direct cause of your injury, that is an unfair burden on you. Accordingly, our legal team of hotel injury lawyers will seek compensation for this loss of job performance that may affect your next raise or promotion.
Strategies for Managing Financial Impact While Unable to Work
Some services offer advances on settlements. We strongly advise against using these services. They charge exorbitant interest rates that will eat into your recovery. There is no possible scenario where we recommend using these services. Instead, communicate your concerns with your hotel injury attorney for personalized advice for the best possible outcome.
Contact an Attorney
If you can’t work after a DC hotel accident, contact the attorneys at Gelb & Gelb today for a free consultation. Every case is different, and time may be of the essence. Specific evidence may not be preserved over several days after your accident. Thus, it is imperative to speak to an attorney right away.
Give us a call today at (202) 331-7227.