Practice Areas & Industries: Baker, Donelson, Bearman, Caldwell & Berkowitz, PC

Practice/Industry Group Overview

Workers' compensation liability is a reality for every employer, no matter what its business.  Maintaining a successful enterprise requires minimizing workers' compensation liabilities through efficient handling of compensable claims, aggressive defense of non-compensable claims and pursuit of employees making fraudulent claims.  Many of the Firm's labor and employment attorneys have extensive experienece in workers' compansation defense and can deal with the intricacies of the Family Medical Leave Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act that are so often implicated in workers' compensation siutations.  Our attorneys have experience with many of the court and industrial commission workers' compensation systems present in the south central United States.

Representative Matters

• Obtained a dismissal for Belfor USA Group, a general construction contractor, from a workers' compensation claim brought by the employee of a subcontractor previously in a collective action seeking overtime wages from Belfor under the Fair Labor Standards Act.
• Obtained a dismissal for Viking Range Corporation against claim of mesothelioma contraction due to exposure to asbestos fibers from the clothing of the spouse who worked around commercial baking ovens which allegedly contained asbestos materials.
• Dismissed on appeal all claims by 53 plaintiffs against construction company for asbestos exposure, intentional misrepresentation and whistleblower violations related to the alleged presence of asbestos at a job site and subsequent termination of the plaintiffs' employment.
• Obtained a defense verdict after bench trial in a high exposure occupational disease case on a statute of limitations defense.
• Obtained reversal of a death benefit judgment in a heart attack case on appeal to Tennessee Supreme Court.
• Obtained appellate reversal of a judgment for a workers' compensation claimant where trial court had found that claimant's injury was obvious and required no medical proof.
• Obtained multiple defense verdicts on defenses of failure to give statutorily requried notice and/or statute of limitations.
• Obtained evidence which led to perjury conviction of workers' compensation claimant.
• Successfully referred claimants to Tennessee's workers' compensation fraud unit for investigations and/or prosecution.

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