Why Bennett Injury Law?

The attorneys at Bennett Injury Law have decades of experience fighting to make arbitration fair for employees and prohibitively expensive and onerous for the Texas nonsubscriber employers that choose forced arbitration. To find out how Bennett Injury Law can help you fight the Texas nonsubscriber company that hurt you, contact us today for your free consultation.

What is Nonsubscriber?

Texas employers are allowed to choose not to carry workers’ compensation insurance. Those who do “opt out” of workers’ compensation coverage are called “nonsubscribers.” Some employers nonsubscribe because they believe they don’t have enough employees, they don’t experience enough on-the-job injuries, or they’re just trying to avoid the cost of the workers’ compensation insurance. But many large Texas employers choose to become nonsubscribers because they want to “self-insure.” And unfortunately for workers, oftentimes, “self-insure” means the employer denies nearly all large claims, makes the employee jump through hoops in order to obtain coverage, and require the employee to forfeit their 7^th Amendment rights to a jury trial by forcing them into arbitration.

When a worker is injured or killed on the job due to negligence, Bennett Injury Law has the experience and resources to hold these employers accountable.

Nonsubscriber Liability

Nonsubscriber liability means employers who don’t carry workers’ compensation insurance can be sued when an employee is injured or killed at work. As a nonsubscriber, the employer can’t claim:

• The employee was partially responsible (contributory or comparative negligence),
• The employee assumed the risk of injury or death, and
• Another employee's negligence was responsible for what happened.

But just because many of the employers’ defenses are prohibited, that doesn't mean the employer will accept responsibility for the injury. The employer may try to suggest the employee was hurt on personal time and not while working for the company and will try to minimize the employee’s injury. The employer may offer some compensation but not nearly enough to cover the employee’s medical expenses, lost wages, or diminished capacity.

The lawyers at Bennett Injury Law will conduct our own investigation of the accident to determine what really happened. This may involve gathering evidence, talking to witnesses, reviewing documents, and hiring experts. We will take the time to build a strong case that proves the employer’s negligence caused the accident that caused your injury.

Our experience has proven that taking this detailed approach dramatically increases the value of a case. We continue to prove to insurance companies and commercial defendants (like large Texas employers) that we build solid cases and are fully prepared to fight them in court. As a result of our persistence and aggression in investigating and litigating these types of cases, defendants and their insurance companies usually try to settle with us.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR RIGHTS

Employers choose not to carry workers' compensation insurance and become nonsubscribers because it benefits them. They save money by controlling the claims process from beginning to end. Unless we get involved.

Some Texas nonsubscriber employers utilize insurance plans that cover medical treatment and compensation for workplace injuries. However, nonsubscriber benefits may be limited and the restrictions extremely prohibitive for the employee. For example, nonsubscriber employers generally choose the doctor the worker sees, and this doctor may not have the best interests of the worker in mind.

Your needs come first with us. We will work to determine the true extent of your injuries and what it will take for you to make a complete recovery. We will fight to get you the financial compensation you are owed, including compensation for medical expenses, lost wages, and other damages.

We can help you seek compensation from nonsubscriber employers for a variety of injuries, including:

Neck injury such as cervical disk herniation, dislocation, subluxation and radiculopathy Shoulder injury such as rotator cuff and tendon tearing Back injury such as ruptured disk, degenerative disk disease and muscle spasm Knee injury such as anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tearing Spine injury such as in quadriplegia, paraplegia or other disability Crushing injury involving the torso or extremities, which may cause reflex sympathetic dystrophy (RSD) and complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS) Closed head injury such as concussion and Traumatic brain injury (TBI)

Forced Arbitration

In the United States, the Seventh Amendment to our Constitution guarantees us the right to civil trial by jury.

“In Suits at common law, where the value in controversy shall exceed twenty dollars, the right of trial by jury shall be preserved, and no fact tried by a jury, shall be otherwise re-examined in any Court of the United States, than according to the rules of the common law.”

However, many Texas nonsubscriber employers utilize arbitration to attempt to limit their liability to the workers they injure. Arbitration is an alternative method of resolving disputes in which two parties present their individual sides of a complaint to an arbitrator or panel of arbitrators. The parties can decide the forum, the rules, and how the costs are distributed. Unlike in court where the jury decides the facts of the case, in arbitration, the arbitrator weighs the facts and arguments of both parties, and then decides the dispute.

In Texas, many large companies use the nonsusciber law to force their employees into arbitration. The company requires the employee to submit any dispute that may arise to binding arbitration as a condition of employment. The employee is required to waive their right to sue, to participate in a class action lawsuit, or to appeal. Forced arbitration is mandatory, the arbitrator’s decision is binding, and the results are private.

One of the alleged benefits of arbitration is that it costs less than litigation. But frequently this is false for employees. Forced arbitration frequently costs more than taking a case to court and can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Individuals often have to pay a large fee simply to initiate the arbitration process. If they are able to get an in-person hearing, individuals sometimes have to travel thousands of miles on their own dime to attend the arbitration. In the end, the loser (usually the individual) often pays the company’s legal fees.

Recently, many of the arbitration forums such as the American Arbitration Association (https://www.adr.org), JAMS (https://www.jamsadr.com), and Judicial Workplace Arbitrations, Inc. (JWA) (https://jwarbitrations.com), have begun prohibiting employers from forcing their employees into paying anything more than they would have to pay to sue the company in Federal Court. But that does not mean the process is fair.

According to the National Association of Consumer Advocates (https://www.consumeradvocates.org/), forced arbitration is preferred by companies because it benefits companies - not the employee or consumer. Here are problems and dangers noted by consumer advocates:

• Individuals are often unaware they've agreed to forced arbitration. Most Americans have accepted good or services or a job with forced arbitration as a condition; and yet, very few individuals report having noticed a forced arbitration clause in the terms of agreements or contracts they’ve accepted.
• Forced arbitration severely limits consumer options for resolving a dispute. Before any problem arises, you lock yourself into only one option—forced arbitration—for resolving all future disputes or problems. The contract typically also names the arbitration company that must be used – the one preferred by the company.
• Forced arbitration clauses generally bind the consumer—not the company. The way many forced arbitration clauses are written, the seller retains its rights to take any complaint to court while the consumer can only initiate arbitration.
• Arbitration is a private system without a judge, jury, or a right to an appeal. Arbitrators aren't required to take the law and legal precedent into account in making their decisions. There is no appeal or public review of decisions to ensure the arbitrator got it right.
• Employees cannot sue for discrimination, harassment, abuse, retaliation, or wrongful termination. In forced arbitration, the laws that protect us from discrimination based on age, sex, religion, race, disability, and unequal pay for equal work, such as the Civil Rights Act and the Equal Pay Act, become meaningless and unenforceable in court. Employees lose important protections for blowing the whistle on waste or fraud or for fighting retaliation for taking the family medical leave.
• Consumers cannot sue for negligence, defective products, or scams. Just by buying a product or service, consumers can lose their right to hold a company accountable. Even if a retirement account disappears, a home is dangerous and defective, or a loved one suffers harm in a nursing home, a forced arbitration clause means there is no right to take the company responsible to court.