Practice Areas

• Workers' Compensation
• Personal Injury
• Social Security Disability

Firm News

• Workers Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission shows we beat both AIG and Zurich in proving that this truck driver for a brick company had two separate accidents which both injured his knee, ultimately disabling him....
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission says Liberty Mutual must provide yardcare and housecleaning to an injured brickmason....
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission rules that a restaurant dishwasher who slipped and fell, and was taken straight to an emergency room has proven that he was injured on the job....
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission sanctions against the insurance company for failing to accept a claim when our client, an insulation installer, was in an auto accident....
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission: The Vocational Rehabilitation Professional, from Page Rehabilitation, had a "strained interpretation of suitable employment and the duration of her proposed job search raises serious questions as to whether her objective was to benefit plaintiff or defendants."...
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission rules against The Hartford Insurance Company and holds that a nurse who was still on her employer's property when she was hit by a car is within the course and scope of her employment and entitled to workers' compensation benefits....
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission finds that Diebold and Broadspire MUST pay weekly benefits even after they fired the injured worker from her "light duty" job....
• North Carolina Industrial Commission: OTP Lawyers stepped in to save an injured plumber whose original lawyer couldn't get the job done against Key Risk....
• North Carolina Industrial Commission: Facing down the Argonaut workers' compensation adjuster in a disputed carpal tunnel case...
• North Carolina Industrial Commission: In this case with Kemper Insurance company the NCIC found that the employer, Cintas, "schemed" to fire plaintiff while she was on light duty....

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Library

Workers' Compensation

• Workers' Comp Tips
• My Employer Says They Don't Have Workers Comp Insurance
• Ten Ways to Wreck Your Workers' Compensation Claim, Online Edition
• What is the Present Value of Money and Why Should I Care?
• Five Ways Doctors Can Hurt Your Case

Personal Injury

• How Uninsured Motorist Insurance protects you in a personal injury claim.

Social Security Disability

• Five Social Security Disability Tips
• What on Earth is a Workers' Compensation Offset?
• What People Applying For Disability Need To Know

General

• The Ten Worst Insurance Companies

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Testimonials

"From the initial interview until the check came I was treated like family. I have and will continue to recommend you to friends and family."

"I was impressed with your firm from the beginning... Although I'm sure you are totally busy with cases I always felt as though mine were the only one you were handling. All my calls were promptly returned and I really appreciate that."

"You were right up front about what the workers' compensation adjuster would try to do. I did not know anything about workers' compensation laws. I think your firm did an amazing job for me and my family."

"You were abale to spot the problems immediately and fix them."

"There's no way I could have gotten the same results without your help."

"Your office a very, very profesional office. You have always treated me with great respect, honesty, and integrity."

"You absolutely are the experts in Workers' Compensation law. You never made me feel foolish."

"You know every aspect of workers' comp and used that to my benefit."

"You were very knowledgeable and treated me with utmost respect."

"I never had another worry after hiring you."

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Who's Paying For Your Gas?

Here's a quick tip which could pay off for you... it also shows why you cannot rely on the Industrial Commission to protect your interests.

Did your adjuster tell you that you're entitled to be paid mileage reimbursements of up to 58.5¢ per mile when you go to the doctor, to physical therapy, or for job searches? The only catch is that the trip has to be ten miles or more one-way. But that covers an awful lot of trips. If you haven't been asking for this reimbursement the adjuster has been laughing to herself.

What’s even worse than that? Consider this. In January 2007 gas in North Carolina was about $2.00 per gallon. Now it’s $4.00 per gallon. In January 2007 the Industrial Commission required insurance companies to reimburse your mileage at 48.5¢ per mile. In April 2008 the Industrial Commission pegged the reimbursement rate at 50.5¢. So even though your gas costs have nearly doubled the Industrial Commission is making sure the insurance industry faces less than a 5% increase. Forgive our sarcasm here, but really, who is better capable of absorbing that kind of price increase: An injured worker scraping by on two-thirds of their regular pay or an insurance company with tens of millions of dollars sitting around?

We take care of the mileage reimbursements for our clients, but there’s no reason for you to go without this money just because we don’t represent you. Email us and we’ll be happy to send you a NCIC Form 25T, the form to use for mileage reimbursements. There is no deadline for filing this but you can expect some flack from the adjuster if you haven't asked for reimbursements over a four-year period and all of a sudden you flood her with a couple thousand dollars worth of mileage reimbursements.

One last thing, you can attach plain pages to the Form 25T -- you don't have to turn in multiple forms with only a few visits on each one. If you haven't clocked the mileage in your car you can do it easily at www.Mapquest.com. Sometimes this doesn't work well if you live in a rural area, but it’s worth trying. By the way, many adjusters double check the mileage requests using Mapquest as well. So you probably won’t succeed in stretching a seven-mile drive into ten miles.