Strathmere, NJ Personal Injury Law Firms & Lawyers

I am a little confused by your question because you say the accident happened 21 years ago and your husband was never compensated after four years. There are two potential remedies available when someone gets injured on the job. The first remedy is to make a worker's compensation claim against your husband's employer. There are time limits that apply to making a worker's compensation claim and if those time limits are not complied with, the worker's compensation claim will be barred. I do not handle worker's compensation cases so I do not know what the Statute of Limitations is for worker's compensation claims. Therefore, I do not know if it is too late to make a worker's compensation claim. I am just pointing out the potential problem. You should check with a worker's compensation attorney. The other potential claim that may be available when someone gets injured on the job is to make a third party claim against the person or company that may have been negligent for causing the injury assuming that person or company is not your husband's employer. A third party case can not be filed against your husband's employer. The remedies available against the employer are limited to worker's compensation remedies. The problem with a potential third party case is that unless a lawsuit has already been filed against a responsible third party, that claim would be barred by the Statute of Limitations. 21 years ago the Statute of Limitations for personal injury cases against third parties arising from a workplace injury was one year from the date of the injury. (A few years ago that was changed to two years). That means a lawsuit would have had to have been filed within one year after the happening of the accident. Since we are now 21 years after the accident, if no third party lawsuit was ever filed, it is now too late to file such a lawsuit.