Mississippi Spinal Cord Injury Lawyer
A spinal cord injury suffered at work rarely stays a single problem. It becomes a question of who pays for surgery and rehabilitation, how a household survives on a fraction of one paycheck, and whether the worker will ever do the same job again. Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC is a workers’ compensation law firm that represents injured workers across Mississippi and South Louisiana, handling denied claims, appeals, and the personal injury cases that often run alongside them.
If you are looking for a Mississippi spinal cord injury lawyer, the central issue is usually not whether the injury is real. An MRI settles that. The fight is over what caused it, how much function you lost, what care you will need for years to come, and whether the benefit stream the law provides is long enough to cover it. Mississippi caps wage-loss payments at a fixed number of weeks, so a lifetime injury meets a finite benefit, and how the claim is built from the first week matters a great deal.
Why Choose Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe for a Spinal Cord Injury Claim
Most lawyers who take workers’ compensation cases are personal injury attorneys who see a work injury only when one walks in. Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe PLLC is built the other way around: workers’ compensation sits at the center of the practice, and the firm’s attorneys bring over 75 years of combined experience to claims that have been denied, delayed, or cut off. The firm has recovered more than $100 million in settlements for clients across Mississippi and Louisiana, and it serves injured workers from Jackson and Madison to the Gulf Coast, Hattiesburg, Southaven, and the Delta.
Rob Lunsford, Founding Partner, has spent his entire legal career representing injured workers. Partners Brad Baskin and Jennifer Priebe have been recognized by Best Lawyers, Super Lawyers, and The National Trial Lawyers, and the firm was ranked by Best Law Firms in 2026 for Workers’ Compensation Law, Claimants, in Jackson. Andrew Rueff has tried dozens of jury and bench trials to verdict and regularly appears before the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission, and Keaton Belk and Erin Heimlicher round out the attorney team.
Spinal injuries are where that focus shows up in dollars. The firm secured $685,000 for a surgical tech with a lower back injury, $600,000 for a construction worker with a complex back injury, and $385,000 for a project manager with back injuries after he was struck in his work vehicle. Clients describe attorneys who listen, stay in touch, and push back on the insurance company at every step. Consultations are free, the firm advances case costs, you pay nothing unless benefits or a settlement are recovered, phones are answered around the clock, and Spanish-speaking clients can work with the team in their own language.
How Work-Related Spinal Cord Injuries Happen in Mississippi
- Falls from height: Roofers, ironworkers, scaffold crews, and linemen can fall from elevation onto concrete or steel. Fractured vertebrae with cord compression are a recognized outcome, and fall claims often raise questions about missing fall protection that may implicate a third party as well as the employer.
- Vehicle collisions on the job: Truck drivers, delivery drivers, and sales or project staff driving between sites face crashes on I-55, I-20, I-10, and rural highways. Cervical and lumbar cord damage from impact is common, and a negligent outside driver opens a separate injury claim.
- Industrial and oil field accidents: Crushing injuries, struck-by incidents, dropped pipe, and equipment failures on rigs, in plants, and at pipe yards can sever or compress the cord. These often involve contractors and equipment makers beyond the direct employer.
- Heavy lifting and repetitive loading: Not every cord injury comes from a single violent event. A herniated disc that migrates into the spinal canal after years of lifting, or after one bad lift, can produce progressive weakness and numbness. Insurers routinely call these degenerative, so the medical causation case matters.
- Construction site incidents: Trench cave-ins, falling materials, and equipment rollovers injure laborers and operators statewide, from Gulf Coast rebuilding projects to commercial work in the Jackson metro.
- Firefighter and first responder injuries: Structural collapses, rescue lifts, and apparatus accidents can cause spinal trauma, and responders carry their own separate set of occupational claims.
- Patient handling in healthcare: Nurses and aides who lift or catch falling patients can sustain disc injuries severe enough to affect the cord, often in settings where the employer disputes how the incident occurred.
What a Spinal Cord Injury Claim Is Actually Worth in Mississippi
Mississippi workers’ compensation pays medical care and wage replacement, not pain and suffering. For total disability, whether temporary or permanent, weekly benefits are two-thirds of your average weekly wage, up to a statutory weekly maximum, and payments run for a limited number of weeks, not to exceed 450. Permanent partial disability cases are subject to the same 450-week ceiling. For a worker in their thirties who will live with paralysis or chronic cord damage for decades, that ceiling is the single most important number in the claim.
Medical benefits are where the largest exposure usually sits. Surgery, hospital stays, rehabilitation, wheelchairs, home modifications, medications, and ongoing specialist care are all potentially compensable, and the cost of a lifetime of care dwarfs the wage benefits. A well-prepared claim documents future medical needs through treating physicians and, where appropriate, life care planning, because a settlement that closes out medical rights will be measured against those projections.
The wage side turns on the disability finding. Insurers will dispute how much of your earning capacity is gone, push vocational reports claiming you can do sedentary work, and sometimes surveil you. Building the record with consistent medical restrictions, functional evaluations, and your actual work history is what answers those arguments.
When Someone Other Than Your Employer Is Responsible
Workers’ compensation is the exclusive remedy against your employer, but it does not shield everyone else. If a negligent driver, a subcontractor on a shared site, a property owner, or the maker of a defective machine or harness contributed to your injury, you may bring a separate injury claim that can include pain and suffering and full lost earning capacity, which comp never pays. The firm’s personal injury attorneys handle car and truck accidents, premises liability, and wrongful death, and they coordinate those claims with the comp case so that a settlement in one does not undermine the other.
Mississippi follows pure comparative negligence, meaning your recovery in a third-party case is reduced by your percentage of fault but not barred. Most injury claims without a shorter special rule must be filed within three years, while claims against a county or other governmental body carry a one-year limit and a notice requirement under the Mississippi Tort Claims Act. If the injury killed a worker, wrongful death claims have their own deadlines and rules, and a negligence-based case generally has three years while an intentional-tort case has one.
What to Do After a Spinal Cord Injury at Work
Get emergency medical care first and tell every provider the injury happened at work, because that shapes how it is billed and documented. Then give your employer notice of the injury. In Mississippi you must report to the employer within 30 days of the accident, and written notice is safer than a conversation. Missing that window can hand the insurer a defense it would not otherwise have, even in a plainly serious case.
The filing deadline is separate. If no disability benefits have been paid within two years of the injury, the claim is barred unless you have filed with the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission in that time. The usual vehicle is a Petition to Controvert, and the two-year clock can also run from the last compensation payment when benefits have been paid. Coverage begins on your first day of work, with no waiting period, so a new hire is protected. These deadlines come from Mississippi Code section 71-3-35, and a spinal cord injury should never be left to run close to them.
Keep your own records. Save discharge papers, imaging reports, prescriptions, mileage to appointments, and a log of symptoms and limitations. Do not give a recorded statement to the adjuster before speaking with a lawyer, do not sign a medical release broader than your injury, and do not accept a light-duty offer that exceeds what your surgeon has cleared. If the carrier denies the claim or stops paying, the dispute goes to the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission in Jackson, not to a civil court. A case is first heard by an Administrative Judge at an evidentiary hearing. A party unhappy with the result can ask the Full Commission to review it, and that review is based on the record already made, not a new trial, so the evidence has to be right the first time.
From there, an appeal of a final Commission award runs to the Mississippi Supreme Court, which can assign the case to the Mississippi Court of Appeals. The notice must be filed within 30 days, and the appeal is decided on the existing record. Because of that, the testimony and medical proof developed at the hearing level largely decide the outcome.
Louisiana Workers Injured With a Mississippi Connection
Some workers cross state lines for their jobs, and the firm represents injured workers in both states. Louisiana has its own rules: notice to the employer within 30 days, a formal claim generally within one year of the accident, and weekly benefit limits fixed by the date of the accident. Claims there are heard by workers’ compensation judges in the Office of Workers’ Compensation Administration. If your job or injury touches both states, which law applies is itself a question worth settling early.
Spinal Cord Injury Questions Answered
Do I need a lawyer for a spinal cord injury claim in Mississippi?
Given the size of the medical exposure and the cap on wage-loss weeks, this is not a claim to handle alone. Insurers have adjusters and defense counsel, and the early decisions about doctors, statements, and settlement terms can affect the case for years.
What does it cost to hire the firm?
Nothing up front. Consultations are free, the firm advances the costs of the case, and fees are collected only if benefits or a settlement are recovered. Attorney fees in workers’ compensation cases are limited and approved under state law.
How long do I have to report the injury?
Within 30 days of the accident. Report in writing if you can, and report earlier rather than later, because the insurer will look closely at any gap.
How long do I have to file a claim with the Commission?
Generally two years from the date of injury, or from the last compensation payment if benefits were paid. If nothing has been paid within two years and no claim has been filed, the right to benefits is barred.
How much will I receive each week?
Total disability benefits are two-thirds of your average weekly wage, subject to a statutory weekly maximum that the state adjusts periodically. A lawyer can calculate your average weekly wage, which includes overtime and other earnings that employers sometimes leave out.
How long do wage benefits last?
For temporary or permanent total disability, not more than 450 weeks. That is the reason medical benefits and the structure of any settlement deserve so much attention in a lifelong injury.
Will workers’ compensation pay for home modifications and equipment?
Medical benefits can extend beyond surgery and therapy to devices and supplies your treating physician prescribes as necessary, such as mobility equipment. Whether a specific modification qualifies depends on the medical evidence, so it should be requested with a doctor’s support and documented carefully.
What if the insurer says my spine problem was already there?
A pre-existing condition does not end a claim. If the job caused, worsened, or accelerated the condition, benefits may still be owed. Insurers lean on degenerative disc findings often, and the answer is strong medical opinion tying the work event or work demands to the injury.
Can I sue my employer for a spinal cord injury?
In most cases workers’ compensation is your remedy against the employer. You can, however, pursue third parties whose negligence contributed, such as a driver, contractor, property owner, or equipment manufacturer.
Can I be fired for filing a claim?
Mississippi protects workers from retaliation for filing a compensation claim. If you were let go or disciplined after reporting your injury, raise it in your consultation so the firm can review your options.
What if my claim has been denied or my benefits stopped?
You can contest it before the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission. A denial is a starting position, not a final answer, and it is common for the carrier to reverse itself once the medical evidence is organized and a hearing is on the calendar.
Should I settle quickly to get money while I recover?
Be cautious. A settlement that closes out future medical care should reflect your realistic long-term needs, which are often not known in the first months. Settling before you reach maximum medical improvement can leave you paying for care out of pocket.
Representing Spinal Cord Injury Clients Across Mississippi
The firm represents injured workers throughout Mississippi, beginning in the Jackson area, where the Mississippi Workers’ Compensation Commission holds its Full Commission hearings, and extending across Hinds, Madison, and Rankin counties. That includes Jackson, Clinton, Byram, Terry, Raymond, Madison, Ridgeland, Flowood, Pearl, Brandon, and Canton. Clients also come from Vicksburg, Brookhaven, McComb, Natchez, and the southwest corner of the state.
To the south and east, the firm serves workers in Hattiesburg, Laurel, Meridian, and the Pine Belt, and along the Gulf Coast in Gulfport, Biloxi, Ocean Springs, and Pascagoula, where port, shipyard, and construction work generates serious injuries. In north Mississippi, the team represents clients in Southaven, Olive Branch, Oxford, Tupelo, and Corinth, and in the Delta communities of Greenville, Greenwood, Clarksdale, and Cleveland. Across Mississippi and into South Louisiana, including Baton Rouge, Lafayette, Lake Charles, and New Orleans, the firm brings the same approach to spinal injury claims for construction workers, truck drivers, ironworkers, oil field workers, nurses, and firefighters.
Talk to a Mississippi Spinal Cord Injury Attorney Today
A spinal cord injury claim is won or lost on decisions made early: the notice you give, the doctors you see, the evidence you preserve, and the timing of any settlement. If you or a family member has suffered this kind of injury at work, a Mississippi spinal cord injury attorney at Lunsford, Baskin & Priebe can evaluate the claim, deal with the insurer, and pursue every source of recovery available. The phones are answered 24 hours a day, consultations are free, and you owe no fee unless benefits are recovered. Call today and put a team that handles only injured workers on your case.
