What Happens If You Settle And Get Injured Again Later?

Dec 18, 2024 | Compensability

What Happens If You Settle And Get Injured Again Later? – When you settle your claim, you give up your rights to collect more benefits for an injury to a particular body part that was injured in a particular accident on a particular day with a particular employer.

If you get injured on a completely different part, for example, you injured your back the first time, and now you’ve injured your neck, there won’t be any impact at all.

How you get injured again later matters

There are 4 different ways of getting injured:

1. You get re-injured again on the same job with the same or different employer

2. You get injured again, but it’s off-the-job

3. Your condition naturally worsens because of the injury

4. Your body parts hurt more because of age or because of changes in your body

What are your rights if you don’t settle?

If you get injured again because of an off-the-job injury, or because of age or change in your body, the insurance company for the old injury won’t pay anything, but if you have another injury on a new job, chances are it will be covered as a new injury, they will pay for medical care, lost wages, etc.

In the case of impairment rating, if you have permanent impairment from the first injury, it will be subtracted from the new impairment from the second injury, because you already got paid for the first one.

If you second injury employer denies your claim and it has been less than 6 years since the first injury, you can try to bring both employers to the same hearing, arguing that you need care because either your old injury is worse or it’s a new injury and the judge can decide.

If your condition worsens on its own, for example, if you had surgery and they put in hardware, and 3 years later the hardware starts to shift and you need to have it removed and you need surgery again, you can reopen your claim, sometimes it’s challenging to do, but as long as it hasn’t been more than 6 years since the date of injury it’s possible to do it.

How do your rights change if you settle and get injured again later?

If you settle, the only thing you’re giving up if you have a later injury is your right to reopen your old injury claim. If it’s a new on-the-job injury you will still get medical care and lost wages, and your impairment rating will still get reduced with or without a settlement.