If you have questions about workers' compensation, contact our law firm to schedule a consultation with an experienced workers' compensation attorney for straightforward legal advice.
Do You Need Help Recovering Workers' Comp Benefits?
The Robert A. Koenigsberg Law Offices represents injured workers from many occupations. To find out more about the types of workers' compensation cases we handle, please visit our Workplace Injuries section of the website.
This page provides some general information about workers' compensation. Talk with our attorneys to discuss how workers' compensation laws in New York may apply to your specific case. For a free consultation, please call 212-964-9292 or contact us online.
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The lawyers at the Robert A. Koenigsberg Law Offices are committed to helping injured workers receive the workers' comp benefits they are entitled to. We have assisted hundreds of people with workers' compensation claims since 1996. You can rely on us for experienced, personalized legal service.
Workers' compensation cases are taken on a contingency fee basis. If we accept your case, there is no fee unless we recover benefits for you. Please call our New York City office at 212-964-9292 to schedule an appointment today.
New York Workers' Compensation Death Benefits
All too often, serious workplace injuries result in death or occupational diseases eventually kill their victims. New York workers' compensation laws provide an economic safety net in the form of death benefits to certain surviving loved ones and dependents of those who suffer work-related deaths.
If your spouse, family member, relative, loved one or someone who financially supported you passed away because of a work-related injury or illness, you should contact an experienced workers' compensation attorney like one from Robert A. Koenigsberg Law Offices in New York, NY, as soon as possible to discuss workers' compensation death benefits.
Beneficiaries
New York law specifies who is eligible for workers' compensation death benefits. The death benefit distribution laws are complex and vary with the individual situation, but beneficiaries may include, depending on the circumstances, surviving spouses; minor children; disabled or blind adult dependent children; young adult children with student status; dependent minor or young adult student grandchildren or siblings; dependent parents or grandparents; or disabled or blind adult dependent grandchildren or siblings.
If none of these parties survive, the benefits usually go to surviving parents or if no parents survive, to the decedent's estate and, in certain circumstances, to special public workers' compensation funds administered by the state.
Special workers' compensation death benefit laws may apply to survivors of workers and volunteers who died in the Sept. 11 attacks, or from injuries or diseases contracted on Sept. 11. Of particular note, surviving domestic partners, in either opposite-sex or same-sex relationships, of deceased Sept. 11 workers and volunteers may be eligible for the same benefits as surviving spouses.
Procedure
A beneficiary must file a claim for workers' compensation death benefits with the New York Workers' Compensation Board (WCB), even if the worker was receiving workers' compensation benefits for the death-causing injury or disease before his or her death. The death benefit is considered a separate claim from any benefits received or accrued during the worker's lifetime. Beneficiaries must take care to meet all deadlines and other legal requirements for death benefit applications.
Benefits
New York workers' compensation death benefits include funeral expenses and partial wage replacement.
Suicide
Normally workers' compensation death benefits are precluded when the worker intentionally commits suicide, unless the suicide resulted from a mental condition arising out of and in the course of employment. An example of an appropriate death benefit claim following worker suicide might be if the employee committed suicide because of mental deterioration caused by a serious work-related accident.
Act Now
In New York, death benefits are intended to provide a financial lifeline for certain surviving family members and dependents, but there are deadlines for application. Anyone whose spouse, parent, other relative or loved one died as the result of a work-related accident or disease should speak with a knowledgeable workers' compensation lawyer like one from Robert A. Koenigsberg Law Offices in New York, NY, immediately about a possible right to workers' compensation death benefits.
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