Workers Compensation Lawyers in Chester PA: Refinery, Port and Warehouse Injuries

The work down here

Refineries and plants in and around Chester, Pennsylvania. Port and terminal operations on the Delaware. Warehouse and distribution along the 291 and 322 corridors. Construction. Delivery and haulage. Healthcare aides in facilities across the south of the county.

These are physical jobs on sites where several employers operate at once, and that combination is what makes the second claim so common.

Why so many of these are two claims

Workers compensation bars a claim against your own employer. It bars nothing against anybody else, and on an industrial site there is usually somebody else:

• Another contractor’s crew on the same site.
• The manufacturer of a machine with a defeated guard or a missing interlock.
• A maintenance contractor whose work preceded the failure.
• Another company’s driver.
• The site owner controlling the permit and lockout system.

Compensation pays nothing for pain and suffering. The third party claim does, and in a serious industrial injury it is frequently worth several times the compensation claim. Firms that only handle comp file the first and stop.

Maritime work is a different system

If you were injured on, alongside or loading a vessel, Pennsylvania workers compensation may not be the right system at all. Seamen may claim under the Jones Act, and longshore and terminal workers may fall under the federal Longshore Act, which pays more generously than state benefits.

That classification question is worth asking before accepting a state claim as the whole remedy. See maritime and Jones Act claims.

The office

405 Avenue of the States, in the center of Chester, answered 24 hours on (610) 686-3088. The substantive compensation rules are on the workers compensation section.