We have been helping injured workers since 1997. Please call us at 888-705-1766 to speak with an attorney for free.
We have had the pleasure of helping hundreds of American Airlines employees. In our years in practice we’ve worked with pilots, flight attendants, gate agents and ramp agents among others.
These workers have sustained just about every injury imaginable. There have been numerous back injuries from lifting bags. A lot of turbulence accidents. Burns from hot drinks. Attacks by customers. Slip and falls, etc.
Flight attendants and pilots based also often get hurt off the plane. Maybe they take a shuttle to a hotel on a layover and there’s an accident. Maybe they slip on a wet floor in their hotel. They could even just be working out and hurt their arm or back. Because they are considered traveling employees, these “off the clock” injuries are covered. A traveling employee is never really off the clock until they are back at home.
American is a self insured company for workers’ compensation. That means they pay the claims out of their revenue instead of relying on an insurance company to do so. They do, however, hire Sedgwick to handle their workers comp claims. Sedgwick is what’s known as a third party administrator or TPA.
A TPA keeps the lucrative business they have by limiting payouts on cases. In other words, Sedgwick or any other TPA is going to make money by limiting what you get on your case. As a result, it’s not uncommon for cases to be denied without good reason. It’s also a usual tactic for them to try to cut off your benefits through IME’s with hired gun doctors, surveillance, nurse case managers or recorded statements.
Because they are working hard to cut off or deny your benefits, even when they seem to be doing things correctly, it’s important to have an attorney in your corner who knows how to deal with them. It shouldn’t work this way, but TPA’s behave differently when a reputable attorney is on the case. A good work comp lawyer will protect you and push back against any bad behavior.
And the reality is that these are the type of jobs where if you don’t get the treatment your doctor says you need, it can cause a minor injury to become major and prevent you from ever returning to work. Pilots and flight attendants especially can’t work with any significant physical restriction.
Note that we can help workers injured in Illinois, based out of Illinois or who were originally hired in Illinois. If you meet that criteria it doesn’t matter where the accident took place. In fact we’ve helped airline employees from almost every state in the US.
If you were injured on the job working for American Airlines and want a free, confidential consultation about your case, please contact us any time.
