Amputation Injuries for Lyft Drivers

Chicago Workers’ Compensation Attorneys Helping Gig Workers

Lyft drivers face the risk of getting into serious car accidents every workday. If a limb or other body part is amputated in the course of driving for a rideshare company, you may be left without the ability to drive. Amputation may be partial or total, but in either case it is serious, and sometimes it leads to complications such as infection or shock. If you’re worried about how amputation injuries for Lyft drivers will affect workers’ compensation benefits, you should discuss your situation with the seasoned Chicago workers’ compensation lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca.

Amputation Injuries for Lyft Drivers in Chicago

Even if you are a careful Lyft driver, you may find yourself in a car accident that results in catastrophic injuries. These catastrophic injuries can result in loss of limbs and appendages that are expensive to treat. You may have signed a contract agreeing that Lyft will treat you as an independent contractor. However, there is a presumption under Illinois law that you’re an employee. The stakes are high in a worker’s compensation claim. Therefore, it’s important to retain an attorney who understands these injuries and also how to assert that Lyft misclassified you. Lyft has the burden of showing you’re not an employee.

To prove you’re not an employee, Lyft will need to establish the factors of the ABC test at the relevant workers’ compensation hearing. It will need to prove: (1) you were and continue to be free from its control when driving passengers, (2) driving for Lyft falls outside the customary course of business for which services are performed, and (3) you were involved in an occupation, profession, or business that was established on its own.

Benefits for Amputation Injuries for Lyft Accident Injuries

With an amputation injury, you may not be able to drive again—you may be partially or fully disabled for purposes of driving. Most amputations are irreversible, though there are exceptions; sometimes a finger can be reattached. Benefits to which you may be entitled include permanent disability pay, reasonable and necessary medical care, and vocational rehabilitation.

Medical care that Lyft’s insurer may be required to pay includes first aid, surgery, medication and prosthetic devices. For example, if you carried a Chicago passenger and a truck crashed into you, and you find that your legs are partially amputated, you may need surgery, or even more than one surgery. You may need to stay in the hospital and be fitted for prosthetic legs. You may need assistive devices. You may not be able to work in any job again; or, you might need vocational rehabilitation to get retrained for a desk job because you are permanently partially disabled. You should be able to obtain disability benefits. The extent of loss you experience as a result of amputation injuries will determine the benefits to which you’re entitled.

There are different ways of calculating permanent partial disability benefits. One method of calculation constitutes 2/3 of the difference between your former wage and what you currently earn.

Lyft may mount a strong resistance to paying you the benefits to which you’re entitled. Even when you receive the full amount of benefits to which you’re entitled, they may not truly make up for the loss of a limb. However, you may be able to recover damages in a third-party lawsuit.

Third-Party Lawsuits

Workers’ compensation benefits do not cover the entirety of a worker’s losses. If your amputation is the result of a car accident, you may be able to obtain damages by filing a lawsuit against an at-fault driver or other entity. In most cases, you’ll need to establish another driver’s negligence, which means you’ll need to show it’s more likely than not: (1) the other driver owed you a duty to use reasonable care, (2) the driver departed from the duty to use reasonable care, (3) causation, and (4) actual damages.

Retain a Chicago Lawyer

Amputation injuries for Lyft drivers can be dramatic and life-changing. Lyft and its insurer may resist paying you benefits to which you’re entitled. Rideshare companies and insurers typically have much greater resources than their drivers and their attorneys may make arguments you’re not sure how to counter, in order to protect profits and avoid paying benefits. The experienced Chicago attorneys of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca understand how to pursue rideshare drivers’ claims. We also represent Lyft drivers in Aurora, Champaign, Quincy, and Rockford, as well as Kane, Cook, Winnebago, Sangamon, and Adams Counties. Call us at 312-724-5846 or complete our online form.