For more than 45 years, MacArthur, MacArthur & Associates, P.L.L.C., has been helping our clients succeed by providing customized, cost-efficient workers’ compensation defense. Risk managers, claims professionals, human resource managers and litigation adjusters who work for self-insured employers, high-deductible policy holders, insurance companies, and third-party administrators count on us to handle each claim with a disciplined, practical approach aimed at reaching the best possible resolution for the client.
You’re responsible for managing your company’s workers’ compensation costs. It's your job to oversee the claim investigation, to understand the legal issues, and to make the right call to settle or go to trial. You need defense attorneys who conduct thorough investigations, prepare clear legal analyses, develop winning defenses, provide definite risk assessments, and deliver honorable advocacy – all tempered by budgetary efficiency. That is exactly what our attorneys provide to our clients.
For more than 45 years, MacArthur, MacArthur & Associates, P.L.L.C. has been helping our clients succeed by providing customized, cost-efficient workers’ compensation defense. Risk managers, claims professionals, human resource managers and litigation adjusters who work for self-insured employers, high-deductible policy holders, insurance companies, and third-party administrators count on us to handle each claim with a disciplined, practical approach aimed at reaching the best possible resolution for the client.
Defenses to your workers’ compensation claims seldom come to you delivered on a silver platter. Rather, cost-saving defenses come from doing thorough, yet efficient, investigations. While the Michigan Workers’ Disability Compensation Act limits traditional means of discovery, MacArthur, MacArthur & Associates has developed industry-leading best practices for investigating workers’ compensation claims that allows for a proper legal analysis and effective defenses.
Workers’ compensation laws vary dramatically from state to state. Whether you’re responsible for workers' compensation cases in multiple states or only in Michigan, you don’t have time for unnecessary detail or imprecision. You want your defense attorney to frame the legal issues clearly and concisely. Our workers’ compensation defense attorneys don’t ask you for blind trust. We want you to understand the legal issues, so you can be confident your decision is the best one. Our customized litigation reports are clear and concise and enable you to efficiently understand the legal issues at hand. If you still have questions, we are always ready to answer those questions in person or via a conference call.
In order to develop winning defenses, you need attorneys who have a keen understanding of the nuances of modern medicine. Without that, key evidence will be missed and winning defenses lost. Whether it's evidence of alternative, non-occupational causes for an alleged work-related diagnosis, or medical evidence that proves the allegedly injured worker is able to do more than they claim, our lawyers have the experience it takes to wade through the sea of medical records to find the favorable medical evidence that would otherwise be missed.
In Michigan workers’ compensation law, it is critical that your medical defenses be supported by credible experts. The overused and worn out expert from the local expert mill just won’t do.
We have developed professional relationships with our medical experts, who spend most of their time treating patients and teaching students at local medical schools. While our medical experts’ forensic practices are limited, the time they spend performing thorough evaluations of alleged injured employees is not. They are well-prepared, credible, and stand-up to cross examination by opposing counsel, which results in trustworthy medical and vocational defenses and reduced workers’ compensation costs.
Michigan workers’ compensation law encourages employees to return to work. When done properly, this can be an effective means of reducing your workers’ compensation costs. But returning an injured employee to work isn’t your only option in Michigan any more. Case law and the 2011 amendments to the Michigan Workers’ Disability Compensation Act allow employers to take credit for an employee’s post-injury wage-earning capacity, not just the wages they actually earn.
We have established relationships with credible vocational experts who can identify an employee’s transferable skills and medical restrictions and translate them into a post-injury wage-earning capacity. Once established, this metric provides a reduction in your wage claim exposure without offering internal modified employment. Our attorneys are on the cutting edge of developing these new vocational defenses that enable you to take full advantage of cost-saving defenses and reduce the money you spend on workers’ compensation claims.
After we lock in your defenses, it’s time to attempt settlement and avoid additional litigation costs. But how much should you pay to settle the case? You don’t need ambiguous dissertations. You need specifics. Our workers’ compensation attorneys provide you with specific percentages of the magistrate denying benefits, granting a closed award, or granting an open award of benefits. We also provide you with the potential amount of any such awards, which means we can specify your exposure to an exact dollar figure. If the plaintiff’s counsel refuses to settle for less than that figure, the decision to try the case is an easy one. That is a decision you can justify based on facts and hard numbers, not on intuition or feelings.
When an injured worker and their attorney won’t settle, our legal team doesn’t hesitate to take the case to trial. Our confidence comes from having conducted a thorough investigation, understanding the legal issues, developing winning defenses, and properly understanding the risks. When it comes to trial, our lawyers provide honorable advocacy that produces favorable results and has earned credibility among workers’ compensation magistrates and appellate courts.
Your economic exposure varies from claim to claim, and so should the cost of defense. Our attorneys tailor defense strategies to the likely exposure of the case to give you the most bang for your defense bucks.
Sometimes counsel for the injured worker won’t talk about settlement. Whether the plaintiff’s attorney is too busy with other cases or can’t get the plaintiff to take a realistic view of the case, it’s not fair for you to incur ongoing litigation costs. Workers’ compensation magistrates strongly encourage the use of non-binding facilitation. Our workers’ compensation defense attorneys are strategic about scheduling facilitation at the appropriate time to get your case settled for the lowest possible sum and minimize your future litigation expenses.
From our offices in Metro-Detroit, Lansing, and Gaylord, our attorneys at MacArthur, MacArthur & Associates provide legal services to businesses throughout Michigan’s lower and upper peninsulas. We invite you to discuss your workers’ compensation defense needs with our team by contacting us for a free consultation.