Finally some relief for employees of medical facilities who are injured on the job.

Do you work for a nursing home, hospital or some other medical facility? If you do the odds are that your employer does not carry Texas Workers’ Compensation Insurance. They probably have their own work injury plan that limits the amount of medical care and the treatment options available to you if you are injured on the job. The law in Texas has always allowed these employers to carry their own work injury plans (or no coverage at all) but if they did have their own plans they were subject to a lawsuit where they were held liable for 100% of the employees damages (including pain and suffering, past and future medical cost, mental anguish and possible death benefits – if the employee died) even if the employee was 99% negligent and the employer was only 1% negligent. The reason for this law is that the State wanted to encourage employors to carry Texas Workers’ Compensation to protect their workers. If they did not they faced the risk or a lawsuit for injury or wrongful death where they have very few defenses. But unfortunantly that law was hijacked by the Texas Supreme Court in its ongoing work to help protect insurance companies and large corporations at the expense of fired and injured works. In a shocking opinion 5 of the 9 Justices held that if you worked for a medical service company like a nursing home or hospital then if you were hurt on the job your claim was really one under the medical malpractice ac. This had major implications for injured medical workers because under the medical malpractice act it was virtually impossible for them to bring a claim against their employers for their injuries. Medical employers (such as nursing homes and hospitals) could have a limited plan to cover their injured workers and the injured workers had no practical way to bring any claim to obtain money to pay for their medical bills or redress their injures and lost wages. This meant that medical workers had no remedy if they were injured on the job. There were horrible inequities against these medical workers. However the Texas legislature finally passed a law to make it clear that these medical workers should be treated like all other workers and their claims are no longer under the Medical Malpractice Act. This law does not take effect until September 1, 2015 but at least their is relief in sight for injured medical workers in Texas.