Workers’ Compensation
The workers’ compensation defense team at GMR aggressively defends employers and insurance carriers in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Over the years, our clients have included private employers, insurers, small businesses, and Fortune 500 companies. Whether the claim involves a small business or a major corporation, we devote our full attention to ensure the highest level of defense. We pride ourselves on maintaining close, long-lasting relationships with our workers’ compensation clients centered on communication, innovative problem-solving, and a successful, cost-effective defense strategy.
We tackle all phases of workers’ compensation litigation from the defense of the initial Claim Petition to the appellate level. We defend throughout the tri-state area, including Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, Dauphin, and Allegheny counties. We also practice in New Jersey, where we have appeared before judges from Camden to Jersey City. Our experience ranges from contesting the reasonableness and necessity of medical treatments to limiting overall exposure and reducing costs on claims. We achieve these goals using various tools, including Impairment Rating Evaluations and Utility Review, for favorable case resolution.
Our attorneys have successfully litigated suspension, termination and modification petitions, and appeals. Our overwhelming auto and general liability trial experience gives our firm the unique specialization in deposing vocational rehabilitation experts and medical doctors from a different perspective than the typical workers’ compensation defense firm.
We understand that the successful representation of our clients extends beyond the courtroom. It routinely involves strategic problem-solving aimed at eliminating immediate and long-term costs. To this end, we have successfully advised clients in risk management to develop and implement successful alternative-work programs, which have resulted in significant monetary savings for our clients.
Insurance Fraud
Our established expertise in civil litigation enables our firm to translate that specialty into a higher level of service for our clients’ workers’ compensation matters. Insurance fraud is an example of that specialized expertise. Our workers’ compensation attorneys are intimately familiar with medical treatment participants involved in treating claimants and quickly identify, defend and prosecute patterns of fraud in medical claims.
Our attorneys analyze all available data to help our clients defeat and extinguish non-meritorious claims that are based on exaggerated or fraudulent evidence. GMR provides consulting services for our clients outside of the litigation context to help identify and avert costs that may be associated with these types of claims. Our insurance and healthcare fraud litigation team has paved the way and set the bar with historic trial victories against attorneys, physicians, chiropractors, pharmacists and medical facilities engaging in healthcare fraud.
Occupational Disease
Defense of occupational diseases is just another area in which GMR has laid a foundation of over 30 years of experience. We have experience as National Counsel for a major corporation and have defended thousands of claims based on alleged occupational exposure to harmful dusts or fumes. Over the years, we have defended these worksite claims across the nation. Utilizing the foundations of analyzing data from medical records, site inspections, and testimony from medical doctors and industrial hygienists to identify and develop theories of alternate causation has allowed our firm to excel in defending these types of claims.
Pre-existing Injuries
In conjunction with the strategies outlined above, we focus the defense of our claims to ensure that no stone goes unturned as it relates to pre-existing conditions. When pre-existing conditions are involved, claimants must prove by credible evidence the alleged work injury actually aggravated the injury, and claimants often rely on only subjective complaints that generally are inconsistent with objective medical evidence. Our attorneys have extensive experience identifying and defending claims involving pre-existing conditions and developing alternate causation defenses. We understand it is essential to gather all evidence involving any potential pre-existing conditions and use that evidence with our own credible medical experts to produce objective medical evidence to support the defense of the claim.
