A Union Painter’s Workers’ Compensation Case Story

One of my favorite cases was this painter by trade was a union painter and he had fallen off a ladder. Fallen probably 12 or 13 feet off a ladder and had a traumatic brain injury and now this young guy is probably 30, 31 years old could never go back to that job. The case was initially accepted, they paid for his treatment, they paid for his cognitive rehabilitation. they paid for almost everything in the claim. Then all of a sudden my client calls me up and says “My check stopped coming, my check stopped coming!”. The insurance company attorney wouldn’t tell me why so after you know a month, my client’a starving, can’t feed his family, can’t feed his children. So I schedule the case for a trial, we go to trial the insurance company attorney appears and they’ve got this, they’ve got video, they’ve got surveillance on my client and it appears that my client is on a ladder in the front room painting the ceiling. Exactly what his restrictions say he cannot do, say he can never be on a ladder again and he can’t paint. So this is why the insurance company cut him off, and I’m like oh no I’m going to lose this case, case is going to be lost and this guy’s you know going doing something outside of his restrictions, doing something he shouldn’t do. Going in I thought this was a definite winner, my client said everything properly, the medical record coincide with his story. Then I see this evidence so on the redirect, when I get the chance to ask my client questions again I go is this you on this ladder, he’s like “no that’s my twin brother and he’s the one who drove me here today.”, so he had the twin brother was out in the waiting room in the chairs and I bring the twin brother in and he testifies that it is, it was him on the ladder. So this case went from winning, losing, to winning again in literally in 2 hours. It was a great day and like won this client. I had a great award we got what’s called a wage differential award. Because he couldn’t earn what he was earning as a union painter any longer, he’s still getting paid today.