Landau Injury Law

Herndon Lawyer Doug Landau chalked up another win on behalf of a school cook who contracted breathing difficulties because of her work for a Prince William County middle school. The claim was denied by the Third Party Administrator (“TPA”) for the School Board. The TPA alleged that our client could have breathed in particles in her own kitchen and that her exposures at home could have been the cause of her medical condition.

While many experienced workers compensation lawyers are not equipped to competently represent people with industrial illnesses, repetitive trauma and toxic chemical exposures, at ABRAMS LANDAU, Ltd., we have take on some difficult claims on behalf of remarkable people who get hurt simply doing their jobs the best way they know how. Occupational Disease cases are more difficult and expensive to try as Virginia law has stricter requirements for these cases. Accidental injury claims need to prove a “sudden accidental injury causing a change in the body.” Occupational disease cases require significantly more evidence.

Virginia Trial Lawyer Landau engaged the services of pulmonary and critical care specialists in Fauquier County in order to support the case on behalf of a baker who had faithfully worked for the school system for 24 years ! She needed medical attention for her damaged lungs. We sought to get this wonderful woman under the protection of an Award of lifetime medical benefits. Since her employer and the insurance company denied her claim, a Hearing was set before a Deputy Commissioner.

Landau was able to compile evidence in support of this baker’s claim. The Herndon trial lawyer elicited evidence from the treating doctors to the requisite standard of “a reasonable medical certainty.” The medical doctors were able to address the following questions which helped us to win the case:

1. Is your patient disabled (either totally or partially - and what restrictions as to work hours, physical limitations and exposure to: baking products, dust, airborne particles, other irritants, etc., would you suggest so as not to undo the good work that has already been done) ? and, if so,

2. Is this disability likely as the result of her on-the-job exposure to baking products such as yeast, powdered milk, flour, cocoa, baking powder, cinnamon, etc., as opposed to any preexisting disease process, genetic predisposition, or other ordinary disease of life or injury ?

3. Was her history consistent with your physical examination, diagnostic testing and/or surgical findings ?

4. What was the date your diagnosis was conveyed and what was the diagnosis and prognosis?

5. Are your treatments and referrals for testing and therapy likely as a result of her on the job occupational exposure and disease?

6. Was there a direct causal connection between her workplace conditions (large scale baking, i.e., 500 dinner rolls at a time for the largest middle school in Virginia) and her pulmonary fibrosis and other respiratory diagnoses ?

7. Is her disease characteristic of her work and caused by conditions peculiar to such employment ?

This entry was posted on Friday, November 16th, 2007 at 9:19 pm and is filed under Disability, Disease Claims, Job Accidents, Workers Compensation. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.