Generally, employees are not allowed to sue their employers for injuries that are covered under Workers’ Compensation. There are exceptions to this rule, however:

• A worker can sue if the employer has not purchased Workers’ Compensation Insurance. Most states however, do require that employers purchase insurance to cover workplace injuries.

• A worker can sue an employer if his particular illness or injury is not covered under the Workers’ Compensation laws of his state. For instance, mental stress trauma that may result from work-related duties may not be covered under the Workers' Compensation statutes of many states.  In such cases, employers may not enjoy protection from lawsuits.  However, the onus here is on the employee to prove negligence, unlike with regular Workers' Compensation claims.

• A worker can sue if the injury is a result of the intentionally negligent actions of the employer.  For instance, many states now allow personal injury claims to be brought against employers if it can be proved that the employer was aware of the existence of a particular hazard in the workplace, and was aware that it posed a considerable danger to workers' health and safety, but allowed exposure anyway.

Whether or not these factors will apply in your specific case can be determined by an experienced personal injury attorney working on your behalf.  Without expert help, it's prohibitively difficult to quantify an accurate claim amount.  It's a common mistake, and one with potentially tragic consequences to make conservative estimates and claims that barely take into account existing medical bills, lost wages and other benefits.  Besides these, there are the long term costs of an injury that you have to account for.  There may be long term effects of the injury or illness that require additional medical expenses later, including the need for specialized care and rehabilitation therapy.  Because of your injury, it may take much longer to get back to work than you realize, and in a worst case, future employment in your field or others may be out of the question.

Third Party Liability for Personal Injury

In certain cases, parties other than an employer may be held liable for personal injury claims.  An example of this is in the construction industry, where there may be more than one company involved in a project, and more than one of these may share liability in the event of an injury.

Responsible parties may include:

• Manufacturers of defective equipment or machinery that contributed to the accident
• Companies that may be involved in the oversight of work the victim was engaged in
• Architects and engineers who may be liable for the defective design of the site, which contributed to the accident.