How can my lawyer help with an appeal?
Answer
So, appeals in the workers’ compensation context typically look like this: if you hired a lawyer or you attempted to bring a petition on your own to recognize your injuries, and the judge at the pretrial hearing decided that, for whatever reason, they weren’t prepared to grant your petition then and there but rather need to hear more evidence—they need a full hearing with testimony and witnesses and the like—then that, in itself, is a form of an appeal that we typically see in workers’ compensation. Your claim is denied at the pretrial level, and by claiming a trial—claim for trial is another word for appeal—you get to a level of the review process by the court where, like a trial, a full trial, you can depose doctors, call witnesses, have testimony under oath, and the judge receives, hears, and considers all of the evidence and then makes a final determination about whether or not your claim is compensable.
Now, if it’s not, you still have appellate rights beyond the hearing judge or the trial judge, to the Appellate Division of the Workers’ Compensation Court or potentially even the Supreme Court. But typically, an appeal indicates that a judge either needs to hear more robust forms of evidence or that perhaps there’s some problem with the claim legally or evidentiary that requires an appeal, and it’s a very difficult thing to handle on your own. That’s something a lawyer would almost always need to be involved in. Our workers comp lawyer in Rhode Island can guide you through this multi-level appeals process, and you can review our Rhode Island workers comp attorney for a clearer understanding of how appeals fit within the overall claim system. For related issues, you may also want to explore topics like what to do if you disagree with your disability rating or who decides your permanent disability rating.
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