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A work accident in Studio City, California, has resulted in a construction worker being killed when the trench he was working in collapsed. It is unclear at this time what caused the Studio City work accident death.

When an employee is injured on the job, he or she is usually entitled to California workers’ compensation benefits, which California employers are lawfully required to for. According to the California Department of Industrial Relations, workers’ compensation provides for six basic benefits: medical care, temporary disability benefits, permanent disability benefits, supplemental job displacement benefits or vocational rehabilitation and death benefits.

Occasionally, an injured worker will have both a workers’ compensation claim as well as a personal injury claim against the responsible party or entity that caused the injury. While workers’ compensation is designed so that fault for the injury does not need to be proved, the personal injury claim depends on who carries the fault, or liability.

If the driver of a big rig truck is injured in a car accident in California, the driver will usually have a workers’ compensation claim against his employer’s workers’ compensation coverage. However, if the accident was caused by the other driver, the injured truck driver may also make a personal injury claim against the responsible party.

In situations like this, it is usually beneficial for the injured worker to have a workers’ compensation attorney and a personal injury attorney who can work together and share information to maximize the financial recovery for all injuries and damages.

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California drivers are subject to Proposition 213, which the California voters passed in 1996. This law hinders the recoveries of drivers who are injured in California auto accidents by essentially providing that drivers in California who are not covered by a valid liability insurance policy, cannot receive non-economic damages (pain, suffering, etc.).

Insurance companies use this law to punish uninsured California residents involved in automobile accidents. Unfortunately, while not its original purpose, this law is often used against people who have a small gap in their coverage, such as when an insurance premium payment does not go through in time, or due to other types of human error.

Fortunately, Proposition 213 does not apply to passengers of the vehicle, so passengers are still entitled to the full value of their cases and, if injured, should call our office to find out their rights.

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Many of our California personal injury clients do not have access to health insurance and cannot afford to pay out of pocket for the medical care that they need. Some of our injured clients have health insurance, but it won’t cover chiropractic care, or the wait to see a doctor or to obtain physical therapy is just too long.

If you have been injured in an accident in California, you do not have to wait or pay out of pocket to see a doctor right away. We have been handling personal injury claims in California for over 30 years and we can find you the medical care you need, on a lien basis, so that you do not have to wait to see a doctor or pay a co-payment before every treatment.

Many California injury victims need a doctor’s examination, chiropractic adjustments, physical therapy, an orthopedic or neurological exam, psychiatric evaluation or treatment, etc.

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Many Los Angeles residents come to our office for injuries they have suffered in a slip and fall incident. These claims are very difficult, but certain key things that you, the victim, can do after the incident, can help get you a recovery for someone else’s negligence.

Just because you have fallen on someone else’s property does not mean that the owner of the premises, or its operator, is responsible. In order to prove that the premises owner/operator is responsible, you must be able to prove that either they created the hazard that caused you to slip and fall, or that they should have known about it and did not fix it.

The first scenario is simple, if a store employee spills a bottle of soda, leaves without cleaning it, and you slip and fall on the soda, that element is met. However, what if you do not know how the soda you slipped on got onto the floor? One thing you should do if you find yourself in such a situation is take pictures of the hazard that caused you to fall. Report the incident to a manager and make sure the manager takes down an incident report. Also, you should try to find any witnesses that saw the fall, saw how the hazard got onto the floor, or know how long the hazard has been on the floor.

One way our office has successfully shown that the store should have known about the hazard, is by obtaining copies of the store’s “sweep sheets,” which show how frequently the store employees maintained and checked the aisles for hazards. If the aisles are not checked in a reasonable amount of time, the store may be responsible.

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