Counsel and Commentary

Forklifts, Forms, and “You’ve Got 90 Days” Workers Comp Without the Snooze

• Jonathan Tuttle with Samuel Maples • Season 1 • Episode 9

Share episode

Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.

0:00 | 51:05

A forklift without a simple guard. A shuttle car missing a safety bar. One decision in a claims office that delays a needed surgery. Samuel Maples has spent five decades turning those moments into accountability and today he lays out a clear, practical roadmap for lawyers and injured workers navigating Alabama’s workers’ compensation and third-party claims.

We unpack the core differences between workers’ comp and personal injury, why comp remains a bench trial with tight statutory limits, and where a third-party claim can move the fight in front of a jury with broader damages. Samuel explains the first steps after a workplace accident, the 90-day reporting trap, and how employer-controlled medical care shapes outcomes, especially for high wage earners who hit caps fast. 

If you advise injured workers or run a firm serving blue-collar communities, this is a masterclass in spotting third-party angles, managing medical disputes, and presenting compelling stories that move decision-makers. Follow and share the show, then leave a quick review to tell us what you’d change first about the workers’ comp system.

This episode is brought to you by Top Attorneys Of North America. https://topattorneys.us/ 

 

To learn more about Samuel Maples:

1.  https://mtandj.com/

2. +1 205-322-2333


-----Learn about Jonathan Tuttle's exclusive ground up Flex Space Development investments including in one of America's fastest growing counties, with very limited investment spots left: 

https://www.land-play.com


To learn more about Jonathan's lawyer Google Ads, SEO or business growth & consulting fractional CMO services:
https://www.revenueascend.com/


To get your very own podcast guesting tour of 20, 40 or 60 episodes and become the leading and celebrity lawyer in your niche: https://getpodcastbookings.com/



Sign up to get on the list for the World's Most Exclusive Social Networking App: https://www.prestigesocialapp.com/

To those looking to potential exit or sell their business or talk about potential business roll up partnerships:
https://www.businesscashout.com/

To learn more about Jonathan's recession resilient mobile home park real estate: https://www.midwestparkcapital.com/ 

To sign up to the email list for the newest episodes of Counsel and Commentary: https://www.counselandcommentary.com/ 

Opening And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01

Have a situation where you're off work, then you're supposed to, if it's authorized treatment and and you have uh related job injuries, the employer is supposed to pay you two-thirds of your average weekly wage up to a specific rate.

Samuel’s Path Into Workers’ Comp

SPEAKER_00

Welcome to Council and Commentary, the ultimate podcast for entrepreneurial lawyers, ready to take their practice to new heights. Each week we dive deep into business strategies, growth frameworks, real-world lessons you didn't learn in law school, but absolutely need to build a thriving, sustainable firm. Whether you're a solo practitioner or running a small team, you'll discover actual insights on leadership, marketing, client acquisition, system building, and financial management, all tailored specifically for the legal world. Hosted by Seasoned Entrepreneur Jonathan Tuttle, founder of RevenueSen, a leading lawyer, Google Ads and SEO agency, also Midwest Park Capital, a boutique alternative commercial real estate asset fund, business cash out, a service-based business rollout PE firm, and get podcast bookings, a podcast guesting tour agency for those wanting to get booked on top of podcast shows. If you're ready to work smarter, lead better, and scale faster without burning oil, keep listening and let's build a firm and life you deserve. Welcome back to the newest episode of Council Commentary to have a fantastic guest, Samuel Maples, who've been actually practicing law for 50 years, which is amazing. Welcome to the show. Thank you. Welcome yourself. Thank you. So let's start up with the uh which led you into the world of workers' compensation law. Let's start with that.

SPEAKER_01

Well, when I got out of law school, I I initially started working for a um real estate-based law firm. And they, I'm talking about major shopping centers, uh, a number of real estate transactions, mortgage foreclosures, all that kind of litigation that is real estate-based. But we also did personal entry and we also did workers' company. It was more of a general practice type firm. That was a we did probate work. We did, you name it, we just about did it. And I did that for about 10 years. Well, having the experience, also during that course of time, uh, we began doing some um Federal Employer Liability Act work, which is railroad. We started doing some railroad litigation on behalf of railroad workers and union. We had always done some union uh workers' litigation and we'd represented IBEW. Um Mr. Coretti had represented um the Teamsters at one time, including he knew and actually spoke with Jimmy Hoffa. So, I mean, it goes way back this union-based uh practice as well. And so when I left the firm uh about after 10 years, I continued doing, I continued working uh, I guess blue collar type injury cases, workers' comp, and also worked coal miners uh cases. And we had actually worked and represented coal miners way back when I started working back in 75 and and when I went with uh the Coretti Newsom Law Firm. Um, so I had contacts. And when I grew up in Busford, a number of uh the kids in high school, they ended up working in coal mines and steel mills. So I knew them. And uh ended up representing some of my former classmates at at high school.

Workers’ Comp vs Personal Injury

SPEAKER_00

So that's that's how I got into it. Nice. So for listeners who may not know, how does uh workers' comp differ from typical personal injury lawsuit?

Third-Party Claims And Big Injuries

SPEAKER_01

Well, personal injury lawsuit is uh it's totally different because of you have a jury trial number one with personal injury cases, uh certainly the option to have one. So you with a workers' comp, it's a bench trial just with the judge. Uh workers' comp is a creature of statute. They're very uh strict limitations and what you can recover in workers' comp. You can it's based on your earnings, but also you have medical treatment, medical coverage. And Alabama has a different workers' comp scheme. It's based, I think, in large part on what Minnesota uh did when they first started their workers' comp scheme. And I think Alabama barred that uh law from Minnesota and started theirs back in the, you know, I guess 1920s or so. But the point being, you have personal injury on the job that involves a workers' comp, but it could involve personal injury cases well if a third party is involved. Third party, for example, I'll give you an example where that happens. And if you do as much workers' comp and as much coal mine uh litigation as we do, you're gonna run into third-party, what we call third-party cases, which are personal injury, which would then lend itself to a jury trial against a third party that's at fault. And that's what we end up, you know, by just being the nature of the beast, yes, you do mostly workers' comp cases, stay workers' comp, but you also, and we keep in-house all of our personal injury cases, and we've had some very big ones. You know, you get horrible injuries, you get quadriplegic, you get uh paraplegic cases. And I'll just give you an example. We had one, it wasn't a coal mine, but it was a huge warehouse up in uh North Alabama, and they call it push-through. When if you've ever gone into Walmart or Costco or somewhere, you'll see those uh uh forklifts trying to put um, I guess, big boxes up on upper levels and racks, and they usually cordon it off so you can't get in that area. Well, in a work setting like uh this particular place, they have assembled a number of automobile parts. They make automobiles, they make various machinery equipment for the automobiles. They they put them on these huge racks. Well, the racks are are back to back. Well, you've got to have protection between the two racks because the guy on the other side of the rack doing his job keeping track or doing inventory of the number of parts, he can't necessarily see or hear a forklift operator on the other side putting up a tote or a big uh box or container. And what happens if it's not protected, then he pushes, they have you have push-through, and the push-through occurs, and then it falls, enter the guy, ends up quadriplegic. And what happened in that particular case is they had ordered um stops, what they call um basically bars, guards, and but they never put them, never installed them. They left them out in a basically a grassy yard, weeds were growing up over them. And so the the company was aware of that, the premises owner was aware of that. The individual that was hurt was not an employee of the premises owner. So we sued the premises owner for failing to protect or guard individuals or make a safe place to work for the outside contractors who had a contract with the third party, the premises owner, to uh they were a warehousing group that takes, you know, special, supposedly, skills to keep track of all their uh automobile parts. Well, this guy was horribly injured, and we sued the premises owner. So that happens uh a number of times when you have an injury on the job. You got to look who's the premises owner. Did they create an unsafe environment? If so, then they're they're responsible. Now, workers come up, uh contributory negligence is not a defense, doesn't uh come into play. But when you have third-party suit, of course, they're entitled to bring alleged any and all uh you know defenses that you would normally see in a personal injury case. But so we do a a great deal of both of those, workers' comp and personal injury, both.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I remember uh when I was in high school, I did uh work up driving. I remember people will be like pushing uh the stuff we follow all the time for minority, people pull the stuff up and you know.

SPEAKER_01

Well, well, you know, yeah, and and when you try personal injury cases, you try to relate to the jury, and you know, basically they'll remember going into Walmart or going into Costco and seeing those uh those racks and seeing those forklifts. No, these are not the normal forklifts, they go up, you know, you know, 20 or 30 feet. Yeah. So they're they're different kinds of forklifts than you normally see at a uh heavy industry location.

SPEAKER_00

And what are the first steps an injured worker should take after a workplace accident?

First Steps After An Injury

Alabama Benefit Caps And Limits

SPEAKER_01

Well, the first thing an injured worker should do is report the accident without question. Um you always end up, there are certain time limitations that an individual has to report the accident to his supervisor. And if you don't report the accident, uh just think about a 50-year-old man or woman has a pre-existing condition or injury or problem that just through age or through some other football injury or whatever, they don't report that accident. They don't report that injury. Well, when they finally get around to doing it, one, it may be too late. 90 days, if you don't have it in writing, it is too late in Alabama. Or number two, even if it is within the 90 days, you didn't report it timely, they're going to argue, oh, well, you had all these pre-existing conditions, you really didn't get hurt. We don't have an accident report. Plus, you can't get the treatment or you're supposed to get the authorized treatment that it seems like they fight. They being the employer always fights to make sure they steer you in Alabama, they control the medical. And so you end up having to undergo authorized treatment from uh attorneys, uh, I mean, from medical providers that don't necessarily, in my opinion, look out for the worker as they should. Uh, because they're they're on the list and the employer is trying to protect their interests. And oftentimes they they don't want to see back surgery or neck surgery, or and especially if there's some pre-existing um degenerative disc conditions, degenerative knee conditions, you'll see uh a physician that sometimes will say, Look, this man needs surgery, and at least in Alabama, and they'll say, No, he doesn't. They'll do it a sometimes they'll do a peer review and say it's due to something else. Or if he does say, Well, you need surgery, the doctor sometimes and many times will say, but you'll have to do do the surgery on your private insurance because it's not covered. It doesn't mean that it's not covered. It just means the employer refuses to cover it. And that happens so often. And unfortunately, it does. So that's why you need a lawyer. Uh, because these individuals that are coal miners are a little bit more savvy. They understand the need to report the injury. Uh, we've actually sat down and spoke to local uh union hall full of people, full of coal miners, and tell them look, report that injury. That's the number one thing you got to do, but also make sure you get treated if you have a significant injury. And usually if somebody gets hurt in the coal mines and they're missing work, they're hurt because they pay, they pay a high wage rate. And these uh individuals that work there, uh, they can't afford to be off from work. And uh when you do, unfortunately, have a situation where you're off work, then you're supposedly, if it's authorized treatment and and in you have uh related job injuries, the employer is supposed to pay you two-thirds of your average weekly wage up to a specific rate. Right now in Alabama, I have to look it up, but I'll tell you what I think it is. It's if you were to be hurt today, it would be$1,172 a week for per week that you would get benefits. Now that doesn't apply to a number of workers, a great deal of workers. Wouldn't apply to you if you worked at McDonald's, if you were making$15 an hour. But if you're making$33,000,$35 an hour and you have uh overtime, which you normally do in the coal mines, you're gonna end up making$100,000,$125,000 a year, and you're gonna exceed that comp rate, but they cap it at that comp rate. Now, the sad thing about it is in Alabama they have not chosen to uh have a cost of living increase with with permanent, what's called permanent partial. They uh and so for example, you if you are temporarily totally disabled in Alabama as a result of a work-related injury, they pay you that$11.72. All right, if you're a high wage earner. But when you get ready to settle your case and you're able to go back to work, they have a statute that says you only get$220 per week on a on a schedule. Now, if it's a non-scheduled injury, a back or neck or shoulder, well, they can pay up to 300 weeks, but that's see you see where that leaves you, you're like, well, it's$66,000 is most you can get for uh say a low back injury. And but if you were significantly injured and you tried to go back to work and you settle your case, unless you keep the right to reopen and you work for say six months or a year, and then you can't go any further, then you can't reopen it and say, Look, I can't, the doctor says I can't work anymore. I'm permanently totally disabled. You can't go back and try to get, you know, and you'll never be able to get lump sum monies in workers' comp. You only get the accrued amounts of weekly benefits they owe you. That's all the judge can uh authorize, but the company can agree to pay you a lump sum amount, and that's where negotiation where you need an attorney that knows the ins and outs. And trust me, unfortunately, I know too many ins and outs of workers' comp. Uh, and people, and you'll hear the mediator when he comes in and tries to settle your case, he'll say to the to the worker, uh, unfortunately, the workers' comp law in Alabama was set up to protect the employer more than it was the employee. And uh it it it seems that way. There are some uh good parts to the workers' comp uh statute. And in Alabama, if you're totally disabled, you get it lifetime benefits. You get it, uh, weekly benefits. But the problem is if you die somewhere along the line, it stops. And so a number of people that get injured, they decide I want a significant amount of lump sum money so I can take care of my family if something were to happen to me. And that that's very often the case in a permanent total disability case.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, it sounds like they need to update to inflation because in a couple years.

Lifetime Benefits, Lump Sums, And Reality

SPEAKER_01

Oh man, I I'm telling you, I I had a guy that was had a shoulder injury, and we uh thought he was permanently totally disabled. The defense lawyer representing the coal mines said, I've never paid over$125,000 for a shoulder and I never will. I said, Well, in this case, you will, because we tried it. And I'll never forget, I wrote him a letter because he insisted that we try that. I said, Well, I've got to, as part of my duty as an attorney, I've got to inform you they're offering you$125,000. He said, Well, are you gonna try the case or not? I said, I'm gonna try the case, but I've got to advise you. So he he was a little bit upset, but he we helped finally he understood. So we went forward with the case. We won the case, and he was getting old back then it was eight or nine hundred a week because it goes up, you know, over the every July it changes, and uh each year it keeps going up. And the poor fellow, unfortunately, I'd say he got benefits for about a year and he died due to cancer. Unrelated. And so it's it stopped, and roughly it ended up basically that the company paid him about 125,000. Now the lawyer's fees are based on the lump sum value of the workers' comp case reduced, it's reduced to present value. So if you say have a life expectancy of 40, 35, 40 years, and you're a high wage earner, that attorney's fee on a permanent total disability case, like a coal minor steel worker, you're talking about attorney's fees of$100,000,$120,000. And so that, you know, we end up going there on a, you know, if the defense or the coal mine operator chooses not to pay a lump sum, but they've they have to pay a substantial amount of money because like I said, if the one thing that judges should know, and if they don't, I'll tell them, when a coal miner doesn't go back to work, they're significantly injured to the point of being permanently totally disabled, because 99% of the time they'd be back at work. They can't find other work, they're not vocationally trained to find other work. If they're real young, maybe, but if they're in their 50s or in their 40s, late 40s, early 50s, they're usually permanently uh totally injured to the point that you've got to pay them a substantial amount of money. So we're fortunate. When I say fortunate, our firm is because we have the designated union counsel role. And typically what happens is word of mouth spreads. Go if you have a worker's comp injury, go see him, or if you have a third-party case, go see him. And it's our firm. So we, you know, we don't have to, and I don't want to, we don't have to advertise, you know, the level of work and recovery that you provide, uh, coal miners, steelworkers, we do a lot of steelworker uh injuries as well. So all of that being said, it looks like to me, uh you really got to know what you're doing because if you don't, if you don't know, you won't be uh performing uh attorney's work for injured coal miners very long. Because like I said, they're fairly savvy. They know they'll talk to other coal miners and they know what's going on. They they look, they know. I just had somebody call me, so I don't know if this will that'll get you. Are you back? Yeah, it's better. Um, that's the problem about doing this with phones. But in any event, bottom line is you we're well experienced in doing this. I mean, all the lawyers in my firm now we have one lawyer that does strictly FELA work. It's a form basically of workers' comp, but railroad industry has a totally separate type of uh scheme of recovery from workers' comp. Coal miners, steel workers don't get the benefit of the FELA. Uh, and I've done a fair amount of FELA. I've done a back in the 80s, I did a um I I partnered up with a firm out of St. Louis. And back then they had uh they would go all over the country. Uh they had they had a huge practice. And back Birmingham, Alabama was so-called the Mecca. In other words, if you got injured in South Carolina and you didn't want to go to South Carolina, or if you got injured in Florida and you didn't want to go to Florida, you had so many railroads coming into Birmingham, Alabama, you could try your case here in Birmingham. And it was just packed with, we were the Mecca, and they changed the law in the in the uh late 80s, early 90s, uh, they went to form non-convenience. And so then you had to go to the location where the injury occurred. So and it turned out really not so bad because a number of uh juries in the in the uh black belt district or counties of uh Alabama, they're they're plaintiff's havens, uh, and they returned the right kind of money for an injured railroad worker who sometimes can't go back into service, sometimes he's out, but he's gonna continue to have problems. So railroads are totally different animal, but um, so I've done it all.

SPEAKER_00

Well why are most workers' compensation claims decided by administrative uh mid uh admin judges instead of well our circuit judges in this state hear workers' comp.

Union Counsel And Blue-Collar Cases

SPEAKER_01

So we are fortunate we don't have to deal with an industrial commission or administrative arm of the government. We actually are are I think that a judicial system is better for the worker than an industrial commission or a administrative set of uh, I guess, I don't know, judges. They may be called administrative judges, but we have actual circuit judges. Their docket will have a personal injury case, it'll have a workers' comp case. Now, unfortunately, you'll see this uh oftentimes when you have new judges, which we're getting a sh probably I need to mentor some of those judges. They don't understand workers' comp, and they'll say, they'll say, I've never done workers' comp case, so I don't understand. Can you uh inform me of well, number one, it's not there's no jury, of course I mentioned, but number two, there's all these little unique sets of rules, and and we have a uh an individual that wrote a two-volume, I call it the Bible, and I tell them, get that and read it. And that's two large books you got to read in there. It's all kind of nuances, but Alabama does have circuit judges that hear your case. Unlike, I I would dare say we're in the minority. I think most states probably go with the industrial commission or the administrative, you know, entity to deal with workers' comp. Whereas I've never dealt that, dealt with that, but I think most people are much better off with the judicial system as opposed to this industrial commission, much better off. But I've tried a case, you know, in states, personal injury cases where somebody got hurt. Uh, but I was able to, for a number of reasons, have the workers' comp case here, but have a third-party case in Texas where the accident occurred. So I've tried cases in other states as well. But all that being said, uh, Alabama's fortunate, I think, in that in having the circuit judge here, the workers' comp case.

SPEAKER_00

Yes. Under what circumstance can a workplace injury claim and up in front of a jury, like third-party lawsuits, gross negligence?

FELA And Forum Shifts

Why Judges Hear Comp In Alabama

SPEAKER_01

Well, when there is a, as I mentioned earlier, a premises owner, for example, uh, has a number of outside contractors uh on its site, on its at its plant, at its mill, at its coal mine, and you get injured working for an outside contractor, then obviously you would probably sue the premises owner, the mine, and you wouldn't be barred from doing that. In Alabama, though, if you're employed by the mine, you can't sue the mine. The worker's comp gives the sole exclusive remedy if you get hurt against the employer, the worker's comp, and that's it. So there they carve out, you know, an exclusion. However, you can sue uh supervisors who are grossly negligent, who willfully intentionally did something that caused or it was substantially certain to cause injury. And it's a very tough burden to cut to carry. It's not easy at all. But a third party can get involved if you're you know, for example, you work in a coal mine and you have uh a product that's defective, and you have a products liability case, you can sue the product manufacturer, even though the accident occurred in the coal mines. We had, I'll give you an example. This individual uh was waiting for a shuttle, what they call a shuttle car, uh uh underground to come pick him up, drop off coal miners that were gonna uh take over the next shift uh uh working in that section of the mine, then he would he would sit and wait on that that shuttle car to get there. He'd sit on an emergency shuttle car in case they needed to get out of the mines because the nearest exit is five miles away or 10 miles away. And they, if they're if the mine caught fire, they'd have to use an emergency shuttle. I don't know if it worked or not, but he's sitting on it waiting on the on the shuttle car to arrive. When it gets there, it's out of control. He doesn't know that. He's he hadn't been working six weeks. Oh my god, here's Carla Sweet. I mean cut it off. So he hadn't been working there six weeks, and he's sitting there, and all the other coal miners with him, they get off. They get off the um the um the the stationary shuttle just sitting there because they see the shuttle car coming. But the shuttle car that he was sitting on did not have a bar, did not have a safety guard uh that would prevent ejection. And when what happened, so sad, he couldn't get off in time and it hit his stationary car, and it caused him to be ejected from the stationary car and land between the shuttle car that struck him and the stationary car. And he kind of caught in the middle, and then it squeezed him because once it bounced him out, then it kept going forward and it just Ruptured, crushed his lower back, he ends up paraplegic. And they had manufactured the this piece of equipment, this shuttle car, without a bar to prevent them from being ejected. So we sued for a product defect claim, lack of safety, safe uh, you know, guards, and and they they had other shuttle cars in the mines with those bars, but not this one. And uh they had had to pay substantial uh money in that case.

SPEAKER_00

That sounds painful just the way you described it. Oh my God, it's awful. Yeah. What strategies change when arguing before a judge versus persuading a jury?

When A Jury Gets Involved

Strategy: Judge Versus Jury

SPEAKER_01

Well, it helps obviously to know the judges. The problem I think we're having today that we didn't have 30, 40 years ago, is most of the judges 30 or 40 years ago, for the most part, were pretty well-trained attorneys. And what would happen is the Democratic Party was king back then in this in this uh in this state, among many other southern states. But it was in the 70s and eight early 80s, and they would just basically go to a lawyer, practicing attorney that had been successful and had done all kinds of litigation, a litigator, and they'd say, Look, we need some trial attorneys. I mean, trial judges. You've done, you know everything that is to know about trial work. We want you on the bench. They'd draft them. They'd say, Look, we we need some good trial judges. And if that particular lawyer had an aptitude, hey, I think I'll do it. I think I'd be a good judge. They do it. Otherwise, they they kept they kept working. But they did at least offer that slot to them. And some of them would turn it down, some of them would take it. But most of your judges were well-trained, well-experienced trial lawyers, most of them. Now it's you just don't have that because what you have now are attorneys that don't have that experience. They did put a minute, I think it's a minimum of five years. You got to practice law. But, you know, practicing law and litigating in front of a jury or a court, totally, totally different. So, you know, judges, you got to start with the thought process that today's judges are not as experienced in the law. So the the lawyer's gonna have to teach some law to those judges because they don't know it like they should. Now they can send them to seminars, and it takes them a while to get there, but eventually they'll catch up and they'll they'll learn, they know it. But for the time being, we see that a lot in our practice in this in this county, whereas it didn't happen before. And of course, in this particular county, there's uh campaign contributions that occurs. Uh, there is a statute that talks about too much of a campaign contribution. I think it's 10% or 20% of your overall campaign contributions. You get that into that area, then the judge has to recuse himself or herself from the handling a case where that lawyer or entity contributed that much money. But I don't keep up with that a whole lot. But the point is that is a difference. Doug Corredi, we have district judges and circuit judges. He would always say this about the district judges. Well, if he if he he didn't think a whole lot of them because they had lesser jurisdiction, like in a personal injury case, they were back then, they were like$5,000, maybe$10,000. And you could always appeal and go to and ask for a jury trial with a circuit judge if you didn't like what happened in the district court. Doug would say, well, the district judge can't hurt you too bad because you can always appeal it. And that's probably true. And we have a number of district judges that you would probably it's a good thing you can appeal them, uh, their their rulings. But once you get to circuit court, you know, you would hope that the judge knows what he or she is doing. Some cases, equitable cases, where you're, you know, maybe a boundary line dispute or maybe some uh injunction type thing. You do we would not have a jury uh on on equity matters. Uh you don't typically have a jury that's gonna hear matters involving um uh domestic relations, might matters involving real estate where you need to enforce a restrictive covenant or you know, in a in a deed or uh number of things, mostly real estate. You find that uh that sometimes there are some issues about um, I think adverse possession. Uh sometimes a judge will get an advisory jury, but usually any type of equitable relief that is sought by a litigant is tried in front of a judge without a jury. Workers' comp, obviously, without a jury. But personal injury tort suits, automobile wrecks, terrible, you know, third-party cases where somebody had an injury in the at work, but also was terribly injured to the point, or seriously injured, to the point that it would result in a third party. You the thing you got to remember about a third party growing out of a workers' comp setting is workers' comp may have paid$100,000,$200,000,$300,000. They're entitled to get reimbursed out of the recovery, less attorney's fees and expenses on a pro rata basis. So they're gonna be there, you know, holding their hand out. So you, if you're going to bring a third-party suit, you've got to have good liability and good damages, or it's not worth bringing. And when you say good liability, you're looking at the uh question of whether this third party uh lit uh defendant, one has a deep pocket, two obviously did something wrong, to because you're in a situation where it is not easy. Hold on. I keep getting, I knew this would happen. It's not easy to uh avoid reimbursing the workers' comp carrier for all of the the mainly the medical expense. You'll see medical beat three or four hundred thousand dollars sometimes. So and that's not uncommon. But the point being there are a lot of differences between non-jury and jury, but I would say equity, domestic relations based cases, workers' comp, non-jury, tort suits, injuries growing out of a uh work at the job site due to somebody else's fault, a third party, not the employer. Um then you would have a uh a suit with in front of a jury.

SPEAKER_00

And I was talking to Sal from Top Attorneys in North America, and we're asking the question for you would be how is technology like telemedicine, AI, or digital claims platforms changing the worker comp landscape?

Tech, Telemedicine, And Trial Tech

SPEAKER_01

Well, workers comp it changes it some. Obviously, it's the digital world. Uh, but for example, when you try a worker's comp case as opposed to a jury case, uh, you're trying in front of a judge, you might have exhibits two feet high, all the medical records, the depositions. When you have a what's called a permanent total case where somebody, you know, is injured and the employer would have to pay out maybe a million dollars or better over the life of the, assuming the individual, and he gets it lifetime benefits. They've never they have not changed that. So you end up with a substantial, you have a vocational expert, you'll have a physician or two that you'll depose. And but you can get the records and the judge can read them, assuming he reads them, and you'll, you know, obviously stress the part of the record that's important uh in your briefs and your pretrial and your post-trial briefs. For the jury, it's different. You're gonna end up with a laser pointing things out, you're gonna have a computer, you're gonna have a what they call trial. What's the name of it? Um it's not just trial prep, but it's you'll have somebody with a computer and you'll say, please put up exhibit number 24. And they'll shoot it up there on the screen for the jury to look at, and you'll have a laser and you'll point to that, and you'll ask questions of the witness. That's the digital age of litigating. And you've got to be real, I mean, you've got to get with the computer guru that's sitting there, and you've got to they so-called, I call it load the system. They got to load it, and you got to make sure it's done without missing a beat. Easy transition. You got to know the individuals that you're gonna put the exhibits in front of so that the individual working the computer can flash them up there in front of the, and you don't have to ex so-called exhibit every one of the exhibits. I mean, they they'll have them to take back to the jury room. And you may want to go ahead and have them look at them while you're showing something to a witness on the stand uh and questioning him about it. But that's the digital world that I know about with um, and it's getting more complex. Uh, but that's that's the difference in a non-jury case, because you can just bank on the judge, you know, reading it, unless it is some complex case that involves multiple um documents that you want to point out to the judge while you cross-examine a particular witness. But a worker's comp setting, it typically wouldn't be that that much. Uh, you know, but you might occasionally, if it's a huge dispute, you might have, and certainly would have uh a number of uh doctors. I remember taking the deposition of a doctor who did a surgery, hip replacement. He had to revise the hip replacement. And the company was taking the position. Well, well, they didn't authorize this physician to do that. And they didn't want that to occur on their dime. And so they were litigating the case. And so they I said, Well, let me take the hip surgeon's deposition. And I took, and he's well known, I took his deposition, and they they, of course, were cross-examined him. And when I got a chance to talk to him and questioned him, I asked him, I said, Um, in the course of treating Mr. Jones here, my client, did you ever need to, or were you ever required to communicate with the workers' comp insurance carrier? And his answer was no. And he said, and that is by design. In other words, doctors don't want to be told what to do with a patient. And that's the problem with workers' comp is the comp adjusters telling the doctor what he thinks the doctor should do. And the doctors just, you'll see where a doctor for years had uh been on the list as a workers' comp. They're off that list now. They they just don't want to be told, and that's the problem you're having, uh, and it's getting more prevalent. Uh, where somebody needs surgery and the adjuster for the insurance company, they're doing all kinds of things to avoid it because you can imagine a three, four-level fusion, that's expensive. And you know, any kind of uh back surgery like that is going to get expensive. So they're trying to limit their expenses. And so I see that happen all the time.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, they always want to get their cost basis down because they don't want to pay out if you could change one thing about the current worker cop system, what would it be and why?

Medical Control And Doctor Lists

SPEAKER_01

If I could change something about it, I think I would change the medical um control that the uh the employer has over the worker because by having that control over the worker, he basically, the the employer, can steer that worker to a set of doctors that they have had experience with, they feel confident won't order the necessary surgery. But if they order that necessary surgery, they'll come up with an excuse saying, well, it really wasn't work-related. It was primary uh pre-existing conditions. But in Alabama, if you aggravate, the law is if you aggravate a pre-existing condition and it causes permanent injury, it's covered, it's compensable. The problem is they tell the doctors what they want to want to tell them, and many of their doctors go along with it. The ones that wouldn't go along with it, they're no longer on the list. So the fact that the employer controls the medical, to me, forces often forces more medical intervention by other doctors who don't have a stake in the game. You know, if you're listed on uh a list of physicians and you do so much workers' comp, then you expect to make money doing that particular worker's comp uh and being that doctor in the deliveries, the medical delivery system. You lose that worker's comp, you've lost a load of income. So how do how does that doctor react when the employer's the adjuster, the insurance carrier, says, Look, we don't think there needs to be any surgery here. What do you think? Well, he needs surgery for let's just put it, he needs surgery. Well, don't you think it's due to pre-existing condition, not the injury itself? Well, you may have a point there. How many times does that happen? It's gonna happen all the time if that doctor wants to stay on the list. And if you just went to a doctor on your own, you know, they would complain, well, you went to a doctor that's gonna take care of you. Well, most doctors are gonna shoot straight and they're gonna say it aggravated it, it didn't aggravate it. And you know, and the problem is that who does the doctor, you know, what about the hypocritic oath? Who's the doctor supposed to protect? He's supposed to protect his patient, but he's not, he's protecting the employer. That's the problem with workers comp to me.

SPEAKER_00

That's the problem. That's a big issue. I was gonna let this down. Where can people find more about you and your uh your firm? Well, we have a website.

Where To Find Samuel & Closing

SPEAKER_01

I'm not um, you know, it you look up Maple's um Tucker and Jacobs, and it'll show there is a website there, and it'll show background information on all the lawyers. Um, it'll show whether they're A V preeminent rated IMAV and uh Bill Tucker's A V. Not all the lawyers have worked 50 years like I have and like Bill Tucker has, but but we do have very competent attorneys in our practice and our firm. And uh it'll tell you about the cases they've handled. It'll tell you about the people that uh have experience with our firm. Uh and you know, uh not you can't please everybody. I'll tell you the the the hardest part of I think practice and law, which we don't do this. We used to used to have an attorney that did nothing but domestic relations, is domestic relations, divorce work, that kind of work. That that I can say, because I used to do a great deal of that work. That no good deed goes unpunished. And in that particular case, you it's hard to satisfy any client in the field of domestic relations. It's very difficult. And so we don't do that anymore. Very sad. We'll send that out most of the time to, but everything else we do. And uh in the personal injury arena, we do just about everything. Um, you know, we don't do tax law, we don't do patent law, and we we do some probate law, uh, just finished with a trust contest, big trust contest. And so I've done some of that over the years, but there's certain things that we send out. And now that I don't do nearly as much real estate work, um, you know, I I send it to some lawyers that I know well that that worked at my old law firm that did nothing but real estate and we're really good at it. So, but we it it'll show you in that website what type of law we do. And it's mostly personal injury-based railroad workers, steel workers, coal miners. Uh, but we do a general practice as well, at least I do, but but if it gets too much too involved on real estate, I'll send it out. If it gets too involved on certain other things that we don't do on a regular basis, I'll usually refer it. But it's we've got a website, and we probably I think we've improved it as we've gone along, but probably need to improve it every four or five years, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Well, thank you again, Sam, for being on counsel and commentary. It's very light.

SPEAKER_01

Well, thank you. I hope uh I help somebody. Hope uh whoever listens to it gets uh a better understanding of you know personal injury and workers' comp.

Host Resources And Final CTA

SPEAKER_00

Perfect. Thank you again. Thank you. Hey, it's Jonathan. Make sure to download Listen Weekly as I bring the top lawyer guests, sharing their best insights, providing exclusive resources, and most actionable advice. Finally, I get a lot of people asking me to help them one-on-one. Yes, I can, but it's very limited. Go to revenue assign.com for lawyer Google Ads, SCO, and CMO Consulting. For commercial real estate investing, go to MidwestParkCapital.com. And those looking to invest in service-based business roll-ups, go to businesscashout.com. And finally, get podcastbookings a top podcast guesting tour agency. All links are included below. Please like, comment, and share this podcast with your friends. Thanks for listening.

Head Shot

Jonathan Tuttle

Host