If you are injured on the job, you need to understand that your employer’s interests and your interests may not be the same. Where do you start? What do you do to promptly receive the best available treatment and all the benefits you’re entitled to? Who is looking out for you? The Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act was designed and implemented in 1919 to help the employee at a time of crisis following a workplace accident. I understand this law and I will use it to recover full and fair compensation.

The Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act was enacted by the Alabama legislature in 1919 to provide medical and financial benefits for workers who sustain an injury or illness while on the job. The Act is long and complex, comprised of 340 sections spread out over 293 pages (not counting supplements) in Sections 25-5-1 through 25-5-340, Code of Alabama. It changes with almost every decision of the appellate courts.

These Code sections have been interpreted by the courts over the last 89 years in thousands of cases, but in all these decisions, one thing has remained constant: the Act has been construed that its overriding purpose is the protection of injured workers from the catastrophic effect of injuries arising out of employment. Holder v. Weatherly, 456 So. 2d 812 (Ala. Civ. App. 1984).

It doesn’t matter if you were careless or partly to blame for the accident — blame is not an issue. The question should be this: did the accident arise out of and during the course of your employment? If the answer is “Yes,” your employer is responsible for promptly providing medical treatment and promptly paying temporary total compensation to you. Then comes the next big issue: how much should the employer pay in a work injury claim and for how long?