Are we live? Okay, so we’re on Facebook and YouTube today. Yay! Because YouTube has allowed us to stream live there, and I believe it auto-saves our videos to YouTube, right? Yes. So then we don’t have to download and upload. Yay! Okay, so it’s Friday at 2 p.m. our regular time. I’m Brandi Austin. And I’m Yasha Patel. And we’re from the Brandi Austin Law Firm. I’m sure you can see our lovely logo. I like it. It’s March-themed.
Okay, so let’s talk a little bit about fun things today. There’s a special holiday today. Yes, it’s the Texas Independence Day. Yeah, it’s 182 years here. And the Alabama? Yes? Yeah. I’m not from Texas originally. We did get here as soon as I could. 182 years ago.
Also, I’m sure you’re wondering why these things are here. It is Dr. Seuss’s birthday. Yay! And I really enjoy Dr. Seuss. Hunter, the screen is gone. Okay, thank you. Sorry. Okay, and then, also very important, please go vote. Today is the last day for early voting.
And then I believe it’s Tuesday, is it this week, Tuesday? Next week, yeah, that it starts back up again, where it’s just regular voting, but the lines will probably be long and whatnot. We hope they’re long. We really, really do. Yes, of course. We want everybody to vote in their primary elections and make sure their voice is heard. And there are several propositions out there also that, I think there’s like eight or ten different types of propositions out there that people should…
for or against whatever your personal beliefs or opinions are. So let’s take just a couple of seconds to talk about what the primary elections are because some people don’t know. So in this election, you are voting on which candidate you want to put against the other or other parties in the main election in November.
Right? Yeah. So there’s going to be a list of four or five or six or one or two. There’s really no limit. I think it’s just however many people can get the signatures to be on the ballot. I’m sure there’s a fee. Yeah. And you pick which one of those people you want to represent your party. So typically, you…
are only allowed to, or you are only allowed to vote in one party’s primary election. So if you are a registered Democrat, then you can vote only in the Democratic primaries against, and select the Democratic candidates. And if you do not, when you show up to the poll and you don’t want to out loud say, I’m a Republican or I’m a Democrat, you are allowed to just point to it and then they will just give you the appropriate documents. There are a lot of places in the county where
they separate the lines, Republican line, Democrat line, and one line will probably be three to four times longer than the other. Don’t let that dissuade you. You can still go vote. It is really important to vote. If you’re not registered as a Democrat or a Republican, you can select one as long as you didn’t sign a petition to allow a candidate to run
um in that election so if a friend of yours decided to run as a republican and you’re not a republican but you signed their petition anyway then you unfortunately only are going to be allowed to vote in the republican primary because you’ve already committed yourself so to speak so uh please go vote um as you know elections are super important and i would say that uh
the election that has the most impact on your life is going to be the local elections. They select your judges. They select, um, county clerk. I don’t know if you do that. Um, the, the chief sheriff, I believe, um, and, uh, mayors, um, you already said county clerks. Yes. Um, um, all of your criminal, your civil judges for JP courts or district courts, all of them, um,
So if you come to our office and you say you want to file a lawsuit, these people are going to be the ones that decide the outcome of your case. So it was a really great idea to have the opportunity or take the opportunity to select who you’d like that to be. And the primaries are a great way to do that because there aren’t a whole lot of Democrats, at least in Tarrant County at the moment. There are quite a few more Democrats this election cycle than there have ever been before, or I guess before.
in the past 20 years. So take the opportunity to vote and have your voice heard and it shouldn’t take very long to do it and it does feel good on the inside. And you can complain. And you get a little sticker that says I voted.
Okay, so in addition to Texas Independence Day, Dr. Seuss’s birthday, Remember to Vote Day, it is Employee Appreciation Day. Yep. And in honor of Employee Appreciation Day, we…
are going to discuss workplace injuries. Woohoo, yay! Although it’s not a yay topic. So what is a workplace injury? It is an injury that happens in the course and scope, essentially, of your job employment. So you have physical or mental injuries and you were working.
Yeah, super simple. Very easy. There are different types of workplace injuries, and that’s what we’re going to discuss next. Different types of recovery. Right, different types of recovery on workplace injuries, yes. So the first one I think we’re discussing today is the workers’ compensation. Mm-hmm.
Go ahead. All right. We’re not workers’ compensation attorneys. I’ll start with that. But basically, your employer elects this particular type of relief for you. And if you are injured while you were in course and scope of employment, then you would get a workers’ compensation attorney, or you could do it yourself. There are forms that are to be filled out, and they’re submitted to the Texas Insurance Department
And basically from there they move it up the chain and your treatment is paid for accordingly. It is considered you are to receive benefits regardless of fault and you don’t basically get to court and have to prove fault on part of your employer. That’s one good thing about it. Can you name another?
Probably not, no. We can probably name bad things, like your punitive damages or any pain and suffering and whatnot is not accounted for. That means you don’t get it. Yeah, that means you don’t get it. It’s not a workers’ comp. You don’t get a lot of things, and it’s really just kind of a mandated set number of things, and that’s all you get. And that’s how it was sold on the at-no-fault website.
tell me how could the people if any are out there watching uh change that sort of system voting voting yes that’s great so take this opportunity to go vote yep anyway okay so yeah workers comp is it used to be a much bigger recovery avenue than it is
there were the tort reform really kind of gutted the program and unfortunately if you’re injured and there’s workers comp you are limited as to what you can receive um so there aren’t many workers comp attorneys i think i know a couple i don’t know any personally i do know of one or two yeah and i’m sure they’re overwhelmed with
claims. Yeah. It’s very time sensitive. You have to do things accordingly and there’s like rules and regulations on the website and you go and follow those and download those forms and yada, yada, yada. All right. So non-subscribers. So they do not subscribe to workers comp. Yep. And basically your employer has opted out of workers comp and they’ve either chosen some sort of a policy or they, you know, self-insured in other words, and you can file a suit against your employer.
I’m not suggesting you fall soon against all of the employers, but you can get an attorney who can then either try to resolve it out of court or take it to court if necessary. And in that, you get all of your regular damages that you get in a personal injury matter, which is your medical bills, lost wages, pain and suffering, mental anguish, if any punitive damages. Loss of earning. Yep. Loss of earning, the futures on your medicals, any future pain and suffering, any future mental anguish.
And gross negligence, should it be warranted. The one thing, okay, so not everybody has an insurance policy or any sort of agreement or handbook or anything as an employer. The employee-employer relationship isn’t always bound by a contract or an employee handbook because there are some small businesses, big businesses, you know, not everybody does that.
all of the paperwork sometimes, which, you know, happens. Smaller businesses, they get big fast sometimes. So most of the time, however, there is an arbitration clause in non-subscriber cases that have an insurance policy. And non-subscriber cases are then before an arbitrator or a panel of arbitrators, one or three. Depends.
And they’re usually selected by both the employer and the injured paramedic. Yes. So then you, it goes a little faster. There’s not a lot of court drawn out time. You’re expected to get your stuff done and you can file an arbitration, file for an arbitration in say January and within six months have the end of the case.
That’s a good thing. The bad thing could be that you’re not in front of a jury of your peers. That’s right. So that’s a very important thing. You, at that point, do not get to have a jury of regular people who are employees and employers and a mixed bag of people hear your case and hear what happened and what the employer did or didn’t do. And so you’re just hoping that
That three people who’ve been in the legal field understand your pain and understand how you were feeling at the time you got hurt and award accordingly. One or three. One or three, yeah. Usually when I think bigger cases or bigger companies may have three, it costs more money. You have to pay for the arbitration. You have to pay for the arbitrator.
or errs and then you have to pay for all the stuff in between it. It’s way more expensive and you are kind of just stuck with what you get. Yup. Um, it works out pretty well sometimes. Uh, and sometimes it doesn’t. I lost one before and it’s not pleasant, not an injury. Um, it happens. Um, but you know, the speed of it is helpful. Um,
But you do usually sign a clause somewhere that says that you agree to arbitration. So you waive your right to a trial by jury. Unfortunately. Unfortunately. And sometimes they’re written so well that people who are reading it, normal people, would not be able to understand what they’re signing away, which is unfortunate. I have to say, sometimes I read some of these arbitration clauses and I have to go back two to three times to figure out
what is going on and what exactly they’re supposed to do. And sometimes it takes us a good 15, 20 minutes to figure out where the person signed or how they actually signed. So what evidence, so if somebody calls us and says, hey, I’ve been injured at work, what do you need to review the case to see if you can take it? First and foremost, I wanna know if it’s workers’ compensation or not subscriber, because we don’t do workers’ comp. I’d just like to know if I need to send them out to the right person.
And that’s basically the starting point. Thereafter, we want photos.
if there is an incident report we want that incident report if they can get it um any other employees who witness them any witnesses uh witnesses of pain and suffering um you don’t have to remember all that we have a luxury intake form yes we do and the intake form kind of sort of just lays out all the questions for you and you just fill it out and it’ll basically give us an idea on what you have what you don’t have what we want and what you should go get and if you want
an attorney to just review it or i’m sure other attorneys can do this but if you want us to just review it you can call in and just we can email the intake form and you can fill it out and we’ll review it and if we think there’s something there we will call you if not we will let you know that it’s not for us and maybe maybe there’s not really a claim now as far as uh
How do you know whether it’s workers comp? Sometimes you don’t know initially, but they should give you paperwork and you will sign something at a doctor’s office because workers comp pays for it if they direct you to the doctor’s office. You should have that paperwork. If you don’t have any form given to you by your employer,
Even though you should, you will probably get one from the first medical provider that you go to. So if you go to the ER, or usually it’s urgent care of some sort, or the local clinic, as long as it’s not so serious, then they will give you some paperwork and they’ll say on there that it’s workers’ comp. Or go to your HR and just ask them. They should be able to tell you whether they subscribe to workers’ comp or not. And then ask if you signed an arbitration clause. And then ask to see it. And then bring a copy. Yes.
But we can review the case. We can review pretty much any case without you actually having to show up and then we can let you know if there’s anything that we feel is worth taking time to pursue. Or we can send you to people who do that type of work if we don’t do it. Yeah, like workers’ comp. I can give you the people’s names that I’m the two that I know. But it’s probably best to call the Tarrant County Bar Association, the Dallas County Bar Association,
or the Texas Bar Association. You can just call them and tell them exactly where you’re located and they’ll give you a worker’s comp during within maybe 100 miles. Yeah. Well, I guess that will be it for this Friday. I am glad to be back. I’m not back full-time yet. I’ve been in and out of the office, but I’m excited to be here and I
Really like Friday. Yay! I guess let us know if we have any questions. If there’s anything you want us to talk about, if we’re not explaining something that we’ve talked about and you want more information, just shoot an email or send a message. YouTube, you can comment. Facebook, you can comment. If you don’t want to put your business out there, you can send us a message on Facebook. I think Facebook has the scheduling thing that we’re using now, so you can schedule an appointment right there, or at least try to, and we can find a time that works best.
Thank you for watching. Go to our website, BrandyAustinLaw.com. That’s Brandy like the wine, Austin like the city, Law is in what we do. I’m Brandy Austin. I’m Yasha Patel. And we will see you next Friday. Bye. It’s been a hot minute. I know. That was a lot.
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