When you get hurt at work, doing the “tough” thing is to work through the pain, but that can actually destroy your workers’ comp case.
In this episode of The Verdict, Clarke Speaks and workers’ comp attorney Brian Groesser explain why delaying reporting an injury is one of the biggest mistakes employees make. Brian walks through a common scenario: someone tweaks their back, keeps pushing through for weeks, then finally reports it, only to have the insurance carrier deny the claim.
You’ll learn why timing is everything, how the law gives you 30 days to report but insurance companies use delays against you, and why even a small injury should be documented right away.
Here’s what we discuss in this episode:
📑 30-day window – The law gives time, but carriers will still fight late reports.
🏋️ Don’t “tough it out” – Working through pain often backfires legally.
🏥 Create a medical record – Even a minor visit documents the injury early.
🚫 Avoid red flags – The longer the delay, the more likely denial becomes.
Featured Keyword & Other Tags
Workers comp, insurance, settlement, resignation, payout
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Transcript (Click To Read)
The #1 Mistake After a Workplace Injury
Clark: I’m, um, Clark Speaks, the catastrophic injury lawyer. Welcome to the Verdict. Welcome to the Verdict. I’m Clark Speaks. I’m here with Brian Grosser. Brian, in a recent episode, we talked about some things that you should do right from the very beginning in your. In your, uh. After a workplace accident, an injury. What I want to tell you, ask you about now, what are some of the biggest mistakes that people make after a workplace accident?
Brian Grosser: I think one of the biggest ones they do is downplay the injury, right? And I think what you have are people that get hurt, and maybe they’re in a physically demanding job, right? And they tweak their back and they say, you know, it’s. It’s not a big deal. I’m not going to report it. You know, it’s. I’m going to work through it. And they do so for two or three weeks, and then it just gets worse. And it gets to the point that they feel like, gosh, I got to report this now. And so they finally say, hey, you know, I tweaked my back about three weeks ago when I was picking up that couch, and it’s been killing me ever since. I’d really like to get treatment. To you, it’s a totally innocuous, like, innocent thing, right? That you did the right thing. You tried to work through it, uh, and it just didn’t get any better. You were trying to do the employer, right? On the flip side of that, the carrier looks at it and says, well, wait a second. He said that he injured his back three weeks ago. What has he been doing this whole time? Like, we don’t know. Does he play in a, uh, rec league softball team? Does he do yard work? Was he, you know, moving furniture in his own house? We don’t know what was happening. The greater the distance is between the time of your injury and the time of your reporting, the greater the likelihood that the carrier’s gonna deny your case. Now, by statute, you have a reasonable amount of time in order to report it to allow for this type of incident to happen. 30 days, right? It’s typically the reasonable period to report your injury, but that doesn’t mean that it necessarily is automatically compensable, because it raises an automatic red flag that you didn’t report this right away. And it just leaves open this possibility that you got hurt somewhere else or that you’re manufacturing this claim to begin with. And you may not be. Maybe the situation that I just mentioned, that you tweaked your back, you didn’t think it was a big Deal. And you kind of tried to work through it. That’s. To me, one of the biggest mistakes that, uh, an employee can make is, is not reporting it when they first feel it. There’s no harm in it. Like, just say, hey, I feel like I tweaked my back. I’m going to keep working through this. And the employer may say, no, no, no, no, no, you need to go. Let’s get this looked at right now. Right. Or they may say, okay, we’ll just keep us posted. But at least you reported. It’s most likely going to be the first instance of, hey, let’s go check it out to the urgent care. And it’s not a big deal. That first day. Like they say, okay, you’re fine. You can go back. At least you’ve reported it. And then if you come back three weeks later and you’re saying, my back is just not getting any better, I felt like it is getting worse. I’ve got ridicular complaints down my leg. Now you’ve got that first medical record from when you first did it. It’s much more likely, much more credible in that regard that this is related to this incident, as opposed to you just randomly reporting it three weeks later without ever telling anybody about it first.
Clark: Okay, uh, Brian, thank you for talking to me about that. When we come back, I want to talk to you. I want to ask you some questions about social media posts and how that might affect your workers compensation claim. Join us next time. Thanks for joining us. Don’t forget to subscribe and follow us to stay up to date with our weekly episodes. We’ll see you next time.
