FedEx Drivers With Shoulder Injuries

Chicago Lawyers for FedEx Drivers with Shoulder Injuries

FedEx drivers travel thousands of miles and must use their shoulders to steer and operate heavy trucks. They also need to lift heavy packages and perform repetitive tasks. Sometimes they’re involved in truck accidents. If you are a FedEx driver, you are particularly at risk of suffering job-related shoulder injuries. These injuries can affect any of three bones that make up the shoulder, or the muscles, ligaments, and tendons that tie them together. You should call the knowledgeable Chicago workers’ compensation lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca. We have more than 60 years of experience representing workers injured on the job.

What Are Common Shoulder Injuries FedEx Drivers Experience?

Common injuries that FedEx drivers experience on the job include:

• rotator cuff tears,
• labral tears,
• dislocation,
• bursitis,
• impingement,
• chronic joint inflammation.

As a FedEx driver, you’ll need to perform repetitive motions that can result in wear and tear on your body whenever you load or unload a truck or climb out of it to deliver a package to someone’s door. In addition, you face the risk of suffering serious or catastrophic injuries in a truck accident.

Your range of motion and ability to perform your job duties may be limited by your shoulder injuries. If these injuries are severe or acute, you may not be able to drive or lift packages at all. You should not assume FedEx knows of your injuries, even if they stem from an accident. It’s important to let FedEx know in writing that you were injured on the job. While the law doesn’t require notice to be in writing, providing written notice prevents FedEx from claiming it didn’t know about your shoulder injuries.

What Benefits Can I Get For Shoulder Injuries?

The extent of your shoulder injuries will determine the benefits you can get. Generally, you can receive medical benefits such as:

• emergency care,
• treatment,
• physical rehabilitation,
• surgery,
• chiropractic care,
• pharmaceuticals.

You can also get temporary total disability benefits, temporary partial disability benefits, permanent total disability benefits, permanent partial disability benefits, and vocational rehabilitation benefits, depending on your degree of disability as a result of the shoulder injuries. If, for example, you are left completely unable to drive, you may be able to get temporary or permanent disability benefits.

FedEx and its insurer must pay your medical provider directly for your care for a work-related injury. You may need to be retrained for a different job and industry through vocational rehabilitation; this, too, should be covered by workers’ compensation.

Third Party Lawsuits

We are seasoned trial attorneys who represent workers not only in their workers’ compensation claims, but also Social Security Disability Insurance claims (SSDI) and third party lawsuits. It may be appropriate to bring a personal injury lawsuit against someone other than your employer if your shoulder injuries were caused by a negligent driver or negligent property owner. If we need to establish that another driver was negligent, we’ll need to prove: (1) the other driver owed you a duty of reasonable care, (2) the other driver breached this duty, (3) causation, and (4) actual damages as a result of shoulder injuries.

Unlike your workers’ compensation claim, with which we may be able to recover a portion of your economic losses in the form of benefits, we can recover noneconomic damages if we are successful with your third party lawsuit. This means you could recover pain and suffering, mental distress, loss of enjoyment of life, or loss of consortium for shoulder injuries caused by a third party.

Consult a Chicago FedEx Workers’ Compensation Attorney

If you suffered shoulder injuries on the job in Aurora, Champaign, Rockford, Quincy, as well as Sangamon, Winnebago, Kane, Cook, and Adams Counties, give us a call. Our Chicago workers’ compensation attorneys also handle third party lawsuits and Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) claims. Call our firm at 312-724-5846 or complete our online form.