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068 When You Have a Workers’ Comp AND Personal Injury Claim: Part 1

068 When You Have a Workers’ Comp AND Personal Injury Claim: Part 1

Lawyers in the House with Montlick

Learn the similarities and differences between workers’ comp and personal injury and the complexities when they intersect.

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The purpose of this show is to provide general information about the law. Our guests will not provide any individualized legal advice. If you have a personal situation and need legal advice, contact us for your free legal consultation with a Montlick attorney.

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00:04	ANNOUCNER: Welcome to Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Wish you had a lawyer in the family? Now you do. Here’s your host, Veronica Waters. VERONICA: Hey friends, welcome on into the House. Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB. I’m Veronica Waters here. Happy to have you sitting down with us for another episode. Thanks so much for joining us today.
00:31	VERONICA: I’m going to start today’s episode with a little question for you. If an up and coming Rocky squared off against an up-and-coming Daniel LaRusso, who would win? Now, I mean Rocky of like Rocky fame, right? And Daniel of Karate Kid fame. Now, I know very little about fighting, but I would think that it would maybe be tough to call. I can see my guest already thinking about it over here.
01:01	VERONICA: But I think it might be kind of tough to call because, yes, they’re both fighting skills, right? But they’re two different skill sets, two different bases of knowledge, two different ways of coming at the opponent and trying to win this fight. Working for that victory. Today’s show is going to be about two types of cases, you might say, the ways that they’re similar and the ways that they’re different.
01:29	VERONICA: When somebody gets hurt on the job, there is a whole complex network of laws and potential claims which could apply. And this show is going to dig into all of them. First, let’s dig into the background of our guest. He is new to Lawyers in the House, but he’s not new to Montlick. His name is Faris Zenjelovic, and he has been an attorney in Georgia since 2013. Yes. FARIS: That’s correct. Yes. VERONICA: And he’s been with Montlick since 2014. FARIS: That’s right. Yeah.
01:58	VERONICA: So, what led you into the field of law? Because if I remember correctly, I think you said this was something that you knew you wanted to do from a very young age. Tell me about that. FARIS: Yes. So, I’m originally from Bosnia, which is in southern Europe. And I moved here with my family in 1998 as a child. And there was a large population of Bosnians that moved to the Atlanta area around the same time.
02:31	FARIS: And so, as immigrants, you know we were introduced to a new system, a new set of laws, new languages. And so, from an early age, I felt like I could help first my community and then the wider community by becoming an attorney and becoming their advocate and helping them in this new land, if you will. VERONICA: Yeah. And you’ve seen that dream come true? FARIS: Absolutely, yes, yes. Yeah. Do you remember something when you were young that made you that really spurred that or was it just sort of the general experience?
03:04	Or was there something personal that you witnessed, and you said, gosh, I know I could do better? FARIS: So well, just personally speaking, I think this is a lot of children of immigrants have the same experience to where even though we’re you know 12 years old, we’re asked by our parents to call and translate and speak on their behalf because they don’t speak the language. And so, from early on, I was that for my family, as I know a lot of my friends were for theirs.
03:32	FARIS: And so, I felt like, okay, I enjoy being able to help out, and I think I can do better as I learn more and as I mature and gain education. And I’ve always sort of been drawn to the law. I thought that that’s where I could make the biggest difference. VERONICA: What led you into personal injury and Workers’ Comp? Because you know you’ve been in Workers’ Comp, I want to say exclusively since you became an attorney, yes? FARIS: Yes. So, it’s sort of similar reasons.
04:02	FARIS: A lot of my community as immigrants were and still are blue-collar workers. And often those are very physical jobs. And so often they would suffer injuries on the job. And even when I was in college and knew nothing about the law at that point yet, I would get questions about what I should do in these situations. And I would think, “Well, I don’t know. You need to contact an attorney.” But I realized that there was certainly a need there for somebody within that community to be able to help.
04:34	FARIS: Because again, it was a majority blue collar. And I thought that I could be helpful if I if I went into that field. VERONICA: And when did you know you were doing the right thing, Faris? FARIS: I mean, I think I find that out every single day again because every time I get a call from a friend or a stranger and I can help them, it kind of reinforces that I made the right decision.
05:02	FARIS: And so, I have had that experience from very early on and I’m still finding that out to this day. VERONICA: Love that. We are talking with Farris Zejnelovic, who is a Montlick Injury Attorney. And today’s episode, as you might have guessed, is about worker’s comp. But it’s also about personal injury. And did you know that those two things are not exactly the same thing? So, we’re going to dig into how these cases overlap. And it might be more or less than you might be currently thinking, right?
05:33	VERONICA: Faris? FARIS: Correct. I often tell my clients that worker’s comp and personal injury are as alike as they are different. So, I think that’s a great way of saying it. VERONICA: Love to have you here in the House. Let’s start off with maybe laying the groundwork because this is something that I’m still kind of wrapping my mind around, trying to really understand the difference. So should we start off with the differences of worker’s comp versus personal injury cases, or should we start off with the similarities?
06:00	FARIS: Sure. Worker’s comp laws do vary by state. But in the state of Georgia, a worker’s compensation claim involves somebody who gets injured on the job. And so, if you are somebody’s employee and that business has three or more employees, they’re required to have workers’ compensation coverage.
06:32	FARIS: And so that coverage then covers a person when they get injured on the job. It’s a no-fault system, meaning that the injured worker does not have to prove that the injury was caused by somebody else’s negligence, and they are then allowed to treat with a doctor for free. However, that doctor has to be approved by the worker’s comp provider. There’s supposed to be a list of approved providers that the injured worker can choose from.
07:03	FARIS: If they end up missing time from work due to their injury, sometimes they’re entitled to a weekly check, which we don’t have in personal injury. And then finally, if they suffer a permanent disability, their doctor decides this, then they’re entitled to some compensation. But it is not pain and suffering the way we have in personal injury. It is not punitive damages the way we sometimes have in personal injury. And so, Worker’s Comp is a no-fault system.
07:30	FARIS: A person is entitled to free medical treatment and a weekly check under certain circumstances if they miss enough time from work. But we cannot recover for pain and suffering or punitive damages the way we can in Georgia in personal injury cases. VERONICA: Even if somebody was at fault or you’re really, really in a lot of pain. FARIS: Correct. It just doesn’t happen. Yeah, it’s a limited set of things that you can recover, and it’s limited to those three things.
08:02	FARIS: Free medical treatment with an approved doctor, a weekly check in certain circumstances, and then what’s called a PPD rating, a permanent partial disability rating, as determined by your doctor. VERONICA: But sometimes, which is what we’re going to dig into today, these cases can overlap. It’s possible for you to have a worker’s comp case and a personal injury case. FARIS: Yes, absolutely. We see that in very often when people are required to drive for work.
08:34	FARIS: And so, if you know you’re a delivery person or if you have to go from job to job, and then you are in a car accident, then you are entitled to a worker’s comp claim because you’ve run the job. And if the car accident is the fault of somebody else, a third party, then you may be entitled to a third-party personal injury claim as well. VERONICA: All right. So personal injury depends on someone else being at fault, somebody else’s negligence or actions that caused my injury, right?
09:03	VERONICA: What about in Worker’s Comp? FARIS: No, correct. So, in personal injury, we have to be able to prove that the other party, somebody else, was at fault for causing the injuries. In worker’s compensation, we don’t have to do that. It’s a no-fault system. All we have to prove is that the person is an employee and that they got injured in the course and scope of employment, meaning they were on the job, they were doing something on behalf of the employer, and if they get injured, they’re entitled to benefits. VERONICA: Okay, so driving to work? FARIS: So that depends.
09:34	FARIS: And that’s why it’s important to contact an experienced lawyer right away when something like this happens, because it really is very fact-specific, depending on how close you are to work, or if you’re on the clock constantly, if you’re an employer, a vehicle, if you’re out of town, all of these things can make a difference in whether you’re entitled to workers’ comp benefits or not. VEROICA: Wow. Okay. What about if I have a seizure or a heart attack at work?
10:04	FARIS: So, it also depends. I’m sorry, I have to keep saying this. VERONICA: You know what? It’s one of the it’s probably the most common phrase on Lawyers in the House with Montlick. It depends. These things just there’s no two cases. There are no two cases, which are exactly alike. FARIS: Absolutely. Absolutely. VERONICA: So, if I have a stroke or a heart attack at work, FARIS: if we can prove that something about the job caused those conditions, it could be a worker’s compensation claim.
10:33	FARIS: Often that is tough to do because if there are things called idiopathic injuries where a person suffered an injury, but it had nothing to do with their employment. And if the employer and their insurance company can prove that, then that may not be a worker’s compensation claim. So, it’s important that we talk about these cases early on with potential clients and investigate and figure out if there’s anything we can do about it.
11:06	VERONICA: What about walking up the hallway, going to the ladies’ room, the little reporter’s room, right? And I slip, trip and fall, bunk my head against a counter or something. What about that? Is that considered worker’s comp? FARIS: I think you know what I’m about to say. It depends. VERONICA: It depends. It depends because I’m here. I got hurt on the job. Seems like that’s it’s not that simple.
11:35	FARIS: You’re saying in Georgia, it isn’t as attorneys who solely represent injured people. I personally feel like, you know, maybe that should be enough. But we have to follow Georgia law. And so, in Georgia, simply walking down the hallway and tripping and falling and hurting yourself may not be enough. It depends on what you tripped on. Did you trip on loose carpet? Did you trip on something wet on the floor?
12:06	FARIS: Was the floor uneven? Are stairs involved? If stairs are involved, that’s usually a worker’s compensation claim. But it really is very fact specific. And so, we always recommend call us right away. Let’s talk about all the facts. Let’s investigate. Let’s dig in. And then we’ll be better able to tell people whether they have a case or not. VERONICA: Something you said earlier, Faris, I wanted to ask you about. You mentioned in Worker’s Comp, you don’t necessarily get the doctor of your choice?
12:37	FARIS: That’s correct. So, in a perfect world, you should. So, the law says that an employer who has to have Workers’ Comp coverage also has to have a posted panel of physicians. And that is a list of doctors that they’re supposed to have for people to be able to choose from. That doesn’t always happen, but that is how it’s supposed to be. VERONICA: All right, let’s dig into that panel of physicians when we come back on Lawyers in the House with Montlick. I’m Veronica Waters here with Montlick Injury Attorney Faris Zejnelovic.
13:07	Stay with us. ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8:00 a.m. every Sunday if you want to listen live on 95.5 WSB. VERONICA: Welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB. I’m Veronica Waters here with Montlick Injury Attorney Faris Zejnelovic. We’re talking about the intersection between workers compensation and personal injury.
13:36	VERONICA: They’re very different, but sometimes they overlap. And right before the break, Faris, you were telling me about something called the Panel of Physicians, which has to do with only workers’ comp cases. FARIS: Correct. So, in a worker’s compensation claim, an injured worker is supposed to be presented with a list of doctors by their employer, and they have the right to choose a doctor to treat with from that list. In the state of Georgia, there are rules about how that list needs to be constructed.
14:06	FARIS: If there is no list, if it isn’t properly posted, if it’s invalid, then the injured worker is entitled to choose their own doctor. And so this is another one of those spots where it’s very important to get in touch with an experienced lawyer because we really do a deep dive into checking out those panels and making sure that there are qualified doctors on there and if there aren’t any, or if the panel looks invalid, we try to get our clients to better doctors.
14:38	VERONICA: And you say better doctors. Why is that? What do you mean? FARIS: Well, I’ve found that although there are certainly quality doctors on some panels, it seems that doctors feel a lot of pressure from worker’s comp insurance providers to do certain things like return their patients back to work, whereas they may not have that pressure if they’re not treating under workers’ compensation.
15:07	FARIS: And so, some doctors shy away from being on these panels because they want to have more freedom to treat their patients the way they want. VERONICA: That’s so hard to believe. FARIS: Yeah, yeah. And unfortunately, there’s also doctors and medical offices who market themselves the opposite way. And in order to get on these panels, we’ll go to employers and insurers and tell them that they are going to return people back to work as quickly as possible. VERONICA: Come on, Faris, you were making this up.
15:37	FARIS: I have a personal story where I experienced this myself. I was at a Hawks game with my wife, and I was chatting to a nice young man next to me. And it turns out that he’s a marketer for one of the larger industrial clinics in the Atlanta area. And he very openly revealed to me that his job is to go from business to business and tell employers they should put them on the panel because they will return injured workers back to work quicker than anybody else.
16:06	VERONICA: Wow. And what went through your mind when you heard that? FARIS: Oh, wow. VERONICA: Because surely, he didn’t know what you did for a living. FARIS: No, no. I don’t think that ever came up, luckily. And I would have liked to see the look on his face. But it didn’t come up. However, I certainly since then, whenever I’ve looked at a panel, have looked for that industrial clinic and have tried to stay away from it and have counseled my clients to stay away from it. VERONICA: That is incredible. Faris Zejnelovic Montlick Injury Attorney. We’re talking about the intersection between workers compensation and personal injury.
16:37	VERONICA: Coming up what you should do first if you’re hurt on the job and how a Montlick Injury Attorney will help you on your road to recovery. Don’t go away. ANNOUNCER: You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Join us 8:00 a.m. every Sunday on 95.5 WSB. VERONICA: Hey friends, welcome on back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB. I’m Veronica Waters here and we’re talking today about the intersection of workers compensation and personal injury.
17:09	VERONICA: And I know what you’re thinking. Aren’t those two the same thing? Well, no, they actually are not. And if you thought that, that means you might have missed some of the first part of our show. We got you. We just want you to subscribe to our podcast on your favorite platform. We are everywhere. We’re on the Spotify and Apple and Google Play. You can always find Lawyers in the House. And the new episode drops right into your queue as soon as it hits the World Wide Web so you don’t have to miss a thing next time.
17:37	VERONICA: And remember, we love to keep up with you every single day of the week, not just here on the show. So, make sure you check us out on all your favorite social media platforms at Montlick Law and send us a question any time of the day or night at lawyers in the house.com. So, we’re here with Montlick Injury Attorney Faris Zejnelovich and we’re talking, as I said, about the intersection between worker’s comp and personal injury. And they’re not the same thing. Faris. FARIS: They are not the same thing. No, they’re not.
18:04	VERONICA: But I do know I have learned today that if I’m hurt in the scope of my job, no matter who’s at fault, I’ve likely got a worker’s compensation case. So, what’s the first thing that I’ve got to do if I have been hurt on the job? FARIS: I think the first thing should always be to report your injury to your employer, let them know you were hurt, and let them know that you need medical attention. Go to the doctor and report every injury that you’ve suffered.
18:35	FARIS: I tend to see medical reports where doctors sometimes focus on the most injured body part. If somebody is bleeding from their arm, they may focus on that and ignore a knee injury, at least in the first visit. But it’s so important to nail down every single body part that’s injured. And so, what folks should know is that when you get in there and talk to the doctor, make sure that you address every body part that’s injured, because it’s very important to document that in order to be able to recover for those body parts later on.
19:09	VERONICA: So, what I hear you saying is if I go to the doctor and I say, oh my gosh, my neck hurts so bad from whatever this machine did. And I don’t tell him about how my hand also kind of got caught there for a few seconds before I was able to escape whatever this mangler was, right? I think I’m thinking about a Stephen King movie now. But you know, it’s maybe not top of mind. FARIS: Correct. VERONICA: That hand injury, right?
19:39	VERONICA: Because my neck is killing me. Or maybe I’m gushing blood from a body part and I’m not thinking about whatever else. But so, it’s like you have to be really attuned to your body and not overlook anything and also not try to power through it on your own. FARIS: Absolutely. And we tell people all the time, you know it’s not the time to be tough. You want to tell your doctors what’s wrong and allow them to diagnose you and help you.
20:04	FARIS: I think a good way to sort of think about your injuries is to go from the top of your head and work your way down literally to your toes and sort of think about each body part and think about whether it’s injured. Do you feel any pain there? Is there any numbness, any tingling, anything like that? And so, you report it to the doctor and then you hope that they document it. You know, sometimes I have clients call me and say I did. I told them. I told them that my wrist also hurts, but it didn’t show up in the first record.
20:30	FARIS: There are laws in the state of Georgia when it comes to worker’s comp cases about how long you have to report injured body parts. And so, if it doesn’t show up in the first report, you want to keep going back to the doctor and reminding them, doctor, thank you so much for helping me with my neck. Please remember my wrist hurts as well. That way it’ll show up at least in the subsequent medical records. VERONICA: That’s incredible. So, as we talked about earlier, so complex, so complex.
20:56	VERONICA: And hopefully your doctor is not failing to document it because they are trying to ignore your injuries because they are getting an encouragement from an insurance company to rush you back to work. FARIS: And while that may sometimes happen, I’d like to think that the doctors mean well, but maybe their primary objective is not to write their medical reports. It’s to help their patients. And they’re probably focused on the most hurt body parts.
21:25	So, the patient, the injured worker has to be their own advocate when speaking with their doctor. They have to be able to tell them, doctor, thank you. But please remember, my wrist also hurts. What about my ankle? What about this? What about that? Because otherwise the doctor may just, you know, forget about it. Yeah, they could just forget. I remember talking to a friend of mine who is also a personal injury attorney, and he was talking about how he had gotten hurt.
21:50	And he went to a doctor who actually asked him, “Are you sure you want to be my patient because I work for the other side?” And I thought, “What an incredible question to ask this guy.” And like, what do you, what does that even mean? The other side? You know, most doctors overwhelmingly want to do no harm. They want to see you recover well. Absolutely. There are, unfortunately, some who do feel as though they’re on one side or another. It shouldn’t be like that. Their patient should be their focus.
22:21	But some doctors do tend to do a lot of work for insurance companies. And so, in the worker’s compensation setting in the state of Georgia, a good experienced attorney will know those doctors. And so, we always try to guide our clients to doctors who are going to take care of them first and not worry about other sides. Give them a choice of doctors where you know that they’re going to take care.
22:51	And my attorney friend said this was a great doctor. Of course, he treated him. He, you know, he had a great reputation going in. He still held that reputation coming out. So, it’s just interesting that I thought that he would strike up a conversation that way with him. If you do this long enough, you hear some incredible stories. I’ve had clients tell me before calling me and having, you know, they treat with a doctor through workers’ compensation for a while and then something shocks them. And so that convinces them that you should call an attorney.
23:20	I’ve heard stories of doctors telling people, “I’m going to have to return you back to work.” However, if you close your worker’s comp claim and come back to me through health insurance, I will recommend surgery. I mean, just shocking things like that. You know And I believe my client. And so, we do our best to get to know who those folks are and make sure that we advise our clients to try to stay away from them. Let’s talk a little bit about those medical bills then.
23:50	You mentioned earlier in the show how Worker’s Comp will pay for your medical bills. Can you dig a little bit more into the detail of that? Sure. What exactly am I getting paid for? And it’s not just wages, but sure. So, while it sounds like I’m criticizing the worker’s comp system here, it feels a very necessary role because medical bills are often high and expensive and not affordable to a lot of people.
24:22	We run into that in personal injury cases and we try to help people through it. The one good thing about Worker’s Comp in the state of Georgia is that it does cover all medical bills with approved doctors. There’s no co-pays. There’s no deductibles. There’s nothing that a person has to pay out of their own pocket. They’re even compensated for mileage to and from medical providers. They’re supposed to document how many miles they’ve driven to a doctor or to a physical therapist or to a pharmacy and then they get reimbursed 40 cents a mile from the insurance company.
24:54	So, the medical treatment portion is truly free as long as it’s a medically accepted claim in the worker’s comp. Okay. Tell me a little bit about the disability. That’s something separate you said. What is that? Yeah, so there’s three benefits that a person may be entitled to in a worker’s compensation claim. The first one is always medical treatment, like we just talked about.
25:19	The second one is a weekly check that a person, it’s called a TTD check, a temporary total disability check, that a person may be entitled to if they missed seven or more days from work due to their injury. And that check, there’s a formula that calculates how much you’re entitled to. But that check is rarely enough to keep people afloat with bills for a long period of time. So, I don’t get wait.
25:48	You’re saying that the wage check doesn’t it’s not the same as what I make it work. It is not. So, in the state of Georgia, it is 66, 2/3 of your average weekly wage. Your average weekly wage is determined by taking, there’s numerous ways of determining it, but in most cases, you take the 13 weeks of what you’ve earned at your job before the accident. So, you work your way backwards for 13 weeks, you average your gross income, and then you get two-thirds of that up to the maximum amount in Georgia.
26:22	That amount has changed in the recent years. It is maxed out at $800 a week. And so for high wage earners, if somebody’s earning $1,500 a week or more, they’re going to be capped at $800 a week. Which is going to make some people want to rush back to work, even if they can’t. And that is exactly how it’s designed. It’s designed to push people to go back to work as quickly as possible. No matter how badly they’re hurt. Unfortunately, yes. But what about if you, I mean, sometimes injuries are so bad.
26:50	Like, you know, of the Bureau of Labor Statistics says that transportation and materials moving industries are really high in injuries and fatalities. So, if someone is killed on the job or loses a body part, certainly you’re not talking about some little cap. Great question. So, I think that’s a perfect sort of transition to what we were just talking about because in the state of Georgia, each body part that you injure or lose has an assigned number of weeks to it.
27:24	And what those weeks means is that you’re entitled to that average weekly wage amount that you’re receiving on a weekly check. So that TTD check you’re receiving, let’s say it’s $825 times a number of weeks, depending on which body part you’ve lost. Wait, so OK, so if I lose an arm. If you lose an arm, that is 225 weeks of your TTD check. That’s it. That is, it. It’s a simple math formula. There’s no pain and suffering.
27:54	There’s no punitive damages. You get 225 weeks times your TTD rate, and that is your disability. Same thing if I lose like a leg? Arms and legs have the same number of weeks associated to them. Hands have a smaller amount of weeks. One eye has a smaller amount of weeks. If you lose both eyes, then that is a greater disability. How much is it if you lose an eye? How many weeks is that? 150 weeks. 150 weeks. If you lose your eye.
28:24	And you’re not going to get another eye. Chances are you’re not going to get an eye transplant. You’re not going to get a hand transplant or an arm transplant. You’re like this for life. You certainly won’t get the functionality back, correct? Like you can get a glass eye, but you’re not going to get an eye that’s going to provide you vision again. And so, the system in place is certainly not adequate to make somebody whole again. And that’s not the point of the worker’s compensation system. But is that the point of what a Montlick Injury Attorney would do?
28:55	So, it’s very, very important, especially in serious cases for folks to call us early on, because what we do is we dig and dig and dig and try to find alternate ways of recovery. Sometimes a person who gets injured on the job may also be able to recover outside of workers’ compensation against a third party. Sometimes that isn’t clear from the beginning, and it requires a lot of digging. And so.
29:22	Can you give me like a quick example of when those two cases overlapped, and you were able to come up with some success there? Sure. So, we often get calls when you know where people say, look, I got injured on the job. I slipped and fell. I work at a warehouse. And you know I broke a bone. I had to have surgery. And so sometimes an attorney will look at that and say, okay, they were on the job. They were on their employer premises. Clearly, this is a worker’s compensation case. Let’s just treat it as a worker’s comp case.
29:51	But often, there may be more to it and a good lawyer will ask more questions to try to figure out whether there’s alternate avenues of recovery. And sometimes the personal injury side, the third-party case can be worth a lot more money than the worker’s comp side. So, for example, if a person falls on a wet floor at their job, we’ll ask, well, who cleaned the floor? Is that the responsibility of your employer or do they hire a third party to do that?
30:19	That’s just one of numerous examples of when workers’ comp and PI can intersect, and a person may be able to have both claims. You’ve got to have an attorney who knows both systems. Coming up, you’ve been waiting for it all hour long. It’s time for the Montlick closing argument. Don’t miss it. You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. If you want to listen to our radio show live, you can hear it every Sunday, 8:00 a.m.
30:48	on 95.5 WSB. Hey friends, welcome back to Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB. I’m Veronica Waters here with Montlick Injury Attorney Ferris Zejnelovich. We are talking about the intersection between workers comp and personal injury, and it is time for what you’ve been waiting for. All hour long, the Montlick closing argument. Ferris, please make the Montlick closing argument for us today. Absolutely.
31:18	I think it’s important for folks to know that personal injury cases and worker’s compensation cases are often a lot more complex than they seem. The insurance companies want you to think they’re simple. They want you to think that as long as you call them and work with them, everything is going to go the right way. But oftentimes, most of the time, that’s not the case. And it’s very important that you call somebody who will be your advocate early on to help guide you through a very complex system that has a lot of pitfalls that we can hopefully help you avoid.
31:51	Now, Montlick has had a worker’s compensation department for what, decades now? Decades, yes. Since 1984, we’ve had a worker’s compensation department, a continuous worker’s compensation department. And what’s very important is that our worker’s compensation department works very closely with our personal injury department. We’re all part of a big team, and we work together on every case. And so, our personal injury attorneys are trained to spot possible worker’s comp issues.
32:23	And if we find any, we have our clients talk to workers’ comp attorneys. Our workers’ comp attorneys are trained to spot any possible third-party claims. And if there are any, we have our clients talk to our personal injury attorneys. And then if we do have a joint case together, we work as a team to make sure that we maximize our client’s recovery. Wow, so there might be actually multiple attorneys working on one particular person’s case, but just because they’re so complex and so different and the avenues are so different, you’ve got more heads, more bodies on a single person’s injuries.
32:58	Absolutely. And I think it’s very important to make sure that nothing is missed. I very often correspond with my colleagues on the worker’s comp side or on the PI side, depending on what case I’m handling to make sure that we’re all on the same page with the same goal of making sure that our client recovers the maximum amount. I love talking to you, Faris. And I have to say that dear audience, Faris actually has been with Montlick for about a decade now, working exclusively, pretty much in Worker’s Comp.
33:28	But he’s actually moving over to the personal injury side. So, he’s got a lot of extra special experience and personal stories that he’s going to share. So, I started off this episode talking about movies, right? Characters, Rocky, Daniel LaRusso, Karate Kid. I think that just like those two franchises, we’re going to have a sequel here. So, Faris, you’re going to hang out with me for another episode? Absolutely. Would love to. I would love it. All right, this is a Lawyers in the House with Montlick on WSB.
33:55	I’m Veronica Waters here with Montlick Injury Attorney Faris Zejnelovic. We’re going to be digging into some really personal stories coming up next week, so make sure you stay tuned with us on WSB. We’ll see you next time. You’re listening to our podcast, Lawyers in the House with Montlick. Catch us live every Sunday, 8:00 a.m. on 95.5 WSB.

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