Hard Hats & Justice: A Gorayeb & Associates Podcast. Episode 15

Repetitive Strain Injury: The Silent Career Ender on New York Construction Sites Some construction injuries arrive in a single moment with a fall, a collapse, and a siren. Repetitive strain injury arrives without any of that. Host Chris Gorayeb breaks down the slow grind of musculoskeletal disorders that build over years of gripping, twisting, pounding, and overhead work until a worker wakes up one morning unable to make a fist. According to the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics, there were more than 272,000 cases of musculoskeletal disorders that forced workers to miss days on the job in 2018, nearly one third of every serious workplace injury that year, and the single most affected occupation was laborers and material movers with more than 25,000 cases. The episode walks through the six conditions the firm sees most often, including carpal tunnel syndrome, tendonitis, tennis elbow, rotator cuff injuries, trigger finger, and bursitis. This episode also explains why these claims are legally different and harder to win. Under New York law, repetitive strain is not classified as an accident but as an occupational disease under Section 2 of the Workers Compensation Law, which changes the deadlines and the burden of proof. Gorayeb lays out the practical timeline workers cannot afford to miss: notify your employer in writing, treat 30 days as a hard deadline, and understand that the two year clock to file with the Workers Compensation Board starts when you knew or should have known the injury was work related. According to the New York State Workers Compensation Board, the standard wage replacement rate is two thirds of average weekly wage subject to a state maximum. The episode closes on the firm's record of more than 2 billion dollars recovered for over 12,000 injured construction workers across four decades. About Gorayeb & Associates Founded in 1986 by Christopher J. Gorayeb, Gorayeb & Associates, P.C. is a New York personal injury law firm serving injured workers across construction accident, workplace injury, and occupational disease litigation. The firm has recovered over $2 billion for more than 12,000 injured workers throughout New York and maintains offices in New York City. Gorayeb & Associates provides bilingual representation in English and Spanish and is known among the New York Latino workforce as The People's Lawyers. For more information, visit www.gorayeb.com or call 212.267.2100.