The workplace should be as safe as possible for everyone’s mental and physical health. Although every worker knows this, very few know what their rights in the workplace exactly are. As such, most assume that the only time they have a right to file a personal injury claim against their employer is when they are physically injured in the course of their work. In fact, most opt for workers compensation claims rather than personal injury claims for these types of injuries.
There are, however, different types of work-related injuries that a personal injury attorney in Utah County can help you file and get compensated for. The key lies in knowing what you are entitled to and acting accordingly when your rights are infringed. The following are some of the common work-related personal injury cases that might apply to you:
Workplace Injuries
These are the most prevalent kind of personal injury case filed by employees against their employers. Workers compensation claims, unlike workplace injury claims, do not allow you to sue your employer or a third party which can be held liable for your case and are hence quite limiting. Workplace injuries encompass all injuries that you have suffered following the lack of adequate measures to mitigate against them. However, your claim would be watered down if there were sufficient measures in place to avoid the injury but you ignored them or used them incorrectly.
Harassment
This in workplaces is unfortunately all too common and goes unreported. Workplace harassment is defined as any unwelcome physical or verbal behavior based on someone’s race, gender, religion, or disability generally by someone in authority. The common forms of workplace harassment include intimidation, offensive jokes and physical contact, sexual harassment, assault, and ridicule. You might be compensated if the bullying is a prerequisite to your continued employment.
Discrimination
Employees should have equal rights for transfers, promotions, pay, leave, fringe benefits, use of company resources, among other work-related aspects. Still, there are times when a boss discriminates against one or a group of employees based on their age, gender, race, religion, or disability. As such, the workers do not get equal rights as their peers to most of the benefits in their position. If this is the situation in your workplace and you have adequate evidence, you can sue your employer.
Breach of Privacy
Employers will nowadays access a lot of information on their employees. This is in an attempt to ensure that the employee is adequately certified and allowed to handle the tasks at hand. The information that an employer knows about you should, however, be confidential. If he or she makes this information public and causes emotional stress for you in your work and social life or the information is used to deny you some privileges, you can sue him or her for breach of your privacy.
A lot of employees are working in toxic environments daily since they are scared of losing their jobs. Most of those suffering physical and mental harm from their workplace choose to downplay the severity or ignore it altogether to keep their jobs. Still, with excellent legal representation, you will get compensated for the work-related injuries mentioned above and still keep your job.
