Not at all. Either out of ignorance or malice, many supervisors will try to discourage you from filing a claim if you did not report it immediately. Often company policy may require you to report the injury in 24 hours, or before the end of your shift, but Texas law makes no such requirement and company policy will not keep you from meeting the legal requirements to get benefits.
Texas law requires that you report your injury to the employer (meaning someone in a supervisory capacity over you) within 30 days from the date of injury. In a typical "accident" case, where the injury results from a specific event (such as a car wreck, a slip and fall, or a lifting injury), that means thirty days from the date of the event.
The 30 day reporting deadline is usually construed very strictly by insurance companies. However, there may be some legally recognized exceptions to the thirty day requirement in your case.
The law provides that if your injury was very minor, you can be excused for "trivializing" the injury. But that does not extend your deadline to report the injury indefinitely. You still must report the injury immediately once it becomes clear the injury is serious.
If your injury results from repetitive activities, overuse, or bad ergonomics at your workstation, your 30 days to report the injury runs from the date you know, or reasonably should have known, that you had an injury related to work. This is a dangerous trap for many employees, as most will want to wait to confirm with certainty either the diagnosis or that it is truly work-related. The law does not allow an employee who knows he or she has a medical condition related to work to wait until a firm diagnosis is established to report the injury, or until receiving a formal report from a doctor stating that fact. It is always best to report the injury early and withdraw the claim later if medical testing shows the work was not a factor in the injury.
Even if you fail to file within 30 days, there can be legal loopholes that will allow you to get compensation regardless. It is important to seek an attorney's assitance to determine if such a provision applies to your case, but it is never wise to rely on this if at all avoidable.
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