It's no laughing matter developing a chronic injury while at work. Suddenly, your daily work routine is thrown out the window. Who is going to pay medical bills and what happens if you can't go back to work straight away? Fortunately, nearly every state in the country has workers' compensation laws that make it compulsory for most employers to take out insurance to cover their employees if they have a work related illness or injury. If this happens to you, you will need to make a workers' compensation claim. Medical bills and part of any lost earnings are covered. Talk to a knowledgeable attorney if you are not sure how to proceed. Company Profile for the Home Depot Inc. Atlanta, Georgia based home improvement chain The Home Depot Inc. is the nation's largest retailer of home improvement and hardware products. It was first established in 1978 with the commercial intention of selling its goods in large, hypermarket type stores. The company has now grown so rapidly that it has overtaken second placed competitor Lowe's. The Home Depot has stores located in every U.S. state as well as a small number of overseas locations. There are Home Depots in the U.S. islands of Guam, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands as well as Canada and Mexico. The Home Depot employs 385,000 employees, putting it well above Lowes in terms of workforce size. If you work for the chain, you are most likely to be employed to help sell a range of goods from paint to building materials and garden supplies to hardware. Selling goods may seem innocuous, but you can still develop a chronic injury simply by standing around for hours on end. Pinched Nerve Scenarios At The Home Depot Injuries like a pinched nerve can develop when forced to stand on your feet or sit prone in one place for hours at a time. A pinched nerve is an injury where one or more of your important nerves are compressed by surrounding tissue or bone. It can be extremely painful and make it almost impossible to do a proper job. In fact, if the nerve has become damaged while at work, you may find yourself unable to attend work due to the pain and the chance of making your condition worse. Injuries at work such as strain from heavy lifting or a slip and fall accident can also lead to a pinched nerve and demand a stop to work to seek proper treatment. Workers' Comp For a Pinched Nerve When you are suffering from a pinched nerve there will be a number of medical costs associated with effective treatment. You are most likely to need x-rays, soft tissue scans, drugs, possible surgery, and office visits to your doctor. These costs should all be included in a workers' comp. claim as well as a component for the time you have spent away from your job getting treatment and recovering. This particular payment is calculated as a percentage of the wages you would normally have earned during the time you were absent. It's important to file your claim promptly to ensure it gets worked on as soon as possible. Treatment for a pinched nerve varies according to severity, but you might spend up to a month unavailable to work. If you are a Home Depot sales assistant earning a typical $9 an hour for a 40 hour working week, your workers' comp. payment would be approximately $360 x 4 x 0.67. This would be $960 for a month's enforced absence from work. Getting Help With You Workers' Comp Claim You might think that when you have suffered a painful injury while at work because of the type of job you do that your employer would bend over backwards to help you obtain compensation. Regardless, it's a good idea to contact an experienced workers' compensation attorney. This might be the case, but if you are finding it hard to work out how to go about filing a claim or you have been denied compensation for any reason, you should turn to an experienced workers' comp. attorney for advice and legal assistance. *Disclaimer The content of this article serves only to provide information and should not be construed as legal advice. If you file a claim against the Home Depot, or any other party, you may not be entitled to any compensation.
