Can You Sue Another Company If You’re Hurt at Work in Alabama?

Yes, if someone other than your employer caused the injury. Workers’ compensation pays benefits no matter who was at fault, but it’s generally the only remedy you have against your own employer. When another company’s employee, truck, machine, or property caused the accident, you may also have a personal injury claim against that company. That second case, called a third-party claim, can cover losses workers’ comp doesn’t, including pain and suffering.

J. David Greene of Greene & Phillips Injury Lawyers joined WKRG News 5’s Judge Knows to talk about injuries in plants, factories, warehouses, and shipyards. His main concern was the injured worker who files for workers’ comp and stops there. “Many times there is a third-party case that people don’t even know that they have,” he said.

What Should You Do First After an Industrial Accident?

Report it to your employer and get medical care. David put reporting first, and Alabama law backs him up. An injured worker is supposed to give the employer written notice of the accident within five days. If written notice isn’t given within 90 days, workers’ comp benefits can be lost altogether, with only narrow exceptions.

Tell your supervisor the same day if you can, then put it in writing and keep a copy.

If another company was involved, write down what you can while it’s fresh: the company name on the truck or equipment, the names of that company’s workers who were there, and anyone who saw it happen. Photos help if you’re able to take them. A third-party claim depends on knowing who else was on site, and that information gets harder to piece together once the area is cleaned up and the outside crew has moved on to another job.

Do You Have to Prove Your Employer Did Something Wrong to Get Workers’ Comp?

No. Alabama’s workers’ compensation system is no-fault, so you don’t have to show your employer was careless. David walked through how it works on air. You make the claim, you treat with the authorized doctor, that doctor assigns an impairment rating, and your benefits are figured from your average weekly wage. Weekly disability checks are generally two-thirds of that wage, up to a maximum the state sets each year.

The trade-off is that the benefits are limited. Workers’ comp doesn’t pay anything for pain and suffering, and in most situations you can’t sue your employer for the injury.

Who Picks the Doctor in an Alabama Workers’ Comp Case?

The employer or its insurance company chooses the first treating doctor. That doctor’s opinions on your work restrictions, when you’ve healed as much as you’re going to, and your impairment rating have a big effect on what the claim pays.

David’s worry is that the doctor is chosen by the other side. “You don’t have anybody that’s your advocate,” he said.

You do have some rights here. If you’re unhappy with the authorized doctor, Alabama law lets you ask for a panel of four physicians and pick one of them. If surgery is recommended, there’s a separate panel of four surgeons. And if the case is contested, the impairment rating isn’t the last word. The judge decides the extent of the disability based on all the evidence, rather than the company doctor’s number alone. A lawyer can make sure those rights get used.

When Is an Industrial Accident More Than a Workers’ Comp Case?

When someone outside your employer caused it or contributed to it. David’s example was another company’s truck running into a worker inside a plant. In that situation, he said, “you wind up with the possibility of having two cases.”

Other common examples in industrial settings include a contractor or subcontractor’s crew working on the same site, the maker of a machine that was defective or shipped without proper guarding (see our page on product liability), a company that serviced or repaired equipment that failed, and the owner of a facility you were sent to work at, if that owner isn’t your employer.

If the only people involved work for the same company you do, it’s probably a workers’ comp case alone. Alabama does allow a lawsuit against a co-worker, but only for what the law defines as willful conduct, such as intentionally removing a manufacturer’s safety guard from a machine. Those claims are hard to win and turn heavily on the facts.

How Is a Third-Party Claim Different From Workers’ Comp?

Fault matters in a third-party claim. You have to prove the other company was negligent, which workers’ comp never asks you to do. In exchange, the damages aren’t capped by a benefit schedule. A third-party claim can include full lost wages and lost future earning ability, medical expenses, physical pain, and mental anguish.

That’s why David said workers’ comp is “very limited in the amount that you can recover” compared with what a third-party case may be worth.

You can pursue both at once. If you recover money from the third party, the employer or its comp insurer is generally entitled to be repaid for benefits it already paid, which is called subrogation. Alabama law also requires the employer to pay its share of the attorney’s fees and expenses that produced that recovery. Having one law firm handle both sides helps keep the two claims from working against each other.

What Happens When a Worker Is Killed in an Industrial Accident?

Workers’ comp pays death benefits to the worker’s dependents, based on a percentage of the worker’s average weekly wage for a set number of weeks. For a family that’s lost its main earner, that may not go very far.

If another company caused the death, the family may also have a wrongful death claim against that company. Alabama handles wrongful death damages differently from most states. The amount is based on how wrongful the defendant’s conduct was, not on a calculation of lost income.

David described cases the firm has handled against factories and manufacturers in the area where workers were severely burned. In one, he said, the family would otherwise have been left with workers’ comp death benefits alone. The firm brought a claim against another company and reached a multi-million-dollar resolution. Every case depends on its own facts, and a past result doesn’t predict the outcome of a different case.

Do the Same Rules Apply to Shipyard and Port Workers?

Not always. Many shipyard, dock, and port workers are covered by a federal program, the Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act, instead of Alabama workers’ comp. Crew members on vessels may fall under the Jones Act. Third-party claims can still exist under those systems, but the deadlines and benefits differ. Our page on maritime accidents goes into more detail.

How Long Do You Have to File?

In most Alabama cases, two years. A workers’ comp claim generally has to be filed within two years of the accident or of the last comp payment. A third-party personal injury claim generally has to be filed within two years of the injury, and a wrongful death claim within two years of the death. Some situations carry different deadlines, and evidence from an industrial accident (equipment, maintenance records, contractor logs, video) can disappear long before any deadline arrives.

David said Greene & Phillips has handled these cases for almost 30 years. You can read more about how the firm approaches industrial accidents and workers’ compensation.

The consultation is free. Greene & Phillips handles personal injury cases on a contingency fee. If there’s no recovery, you owe no attorney’s fee and no case expenses. If the firm does recover compensation for you, the fee and case expenses are paid out of that recovery.

Call Greene & Phillips Injury Lawyers at 251-478-1115 (Mobile) or 205-918-7800 (Birmingham), no appointment needed. You can also stop by our Midtown Mobile office at 51 N Florida St, visit our Birmingham office in the Watts Building, or reach us through our contact page.