Two Years Later, She Finally Got What She Was Owed

She did her job. She got hurt doing it. And then her employer’s insurance company said it wasn’t their problem.

Our client was a security guard at a Nevada facility. Her job required her to manually open and close a heavy entry gate every day. One morning, as she pulled the gate open, she felt a pop in her neck and pain shoot through her shoulders. She reported the injury and filed a workers’ compensation claim.

The insurer denied it.

What She Was Up Against

Denied workers’ compensation claims are more common than most injured workers realize. Insurance companies count on that to discourage people from pushing back.

In this case, the insurer pointed to our client’s pre-existing shoulder injuries as a reason to reject responsibility. The argument was that her pain wasn’t caused by work. It was just her history catching up with her.

That argument was wrong. And we were prepared to prove it.

How We Built the Case

Our client spent years treating on her own, out of pocket, waiting for a system that was supposed to protect her. Throughout that time, our team continued to build her case.

The turning point came when the parties agreed to send our client for an independent medical examination. The IME physician reviewed her medical history, the mechanism of injury, and the conditions she developed after the incident. His conclusion was clear: the way she was injured, the motion, the force, the physical demand of that gate, was consistent with and capable of causing her resulting condition.

Pre-existing injuries don’t eliminate an employer’s responsibility when a workplace incident makes things worse. That’s a core principle of Nevada workers’ compensation law, and it’s one insurers routinely try to obscure.

The IME report changed the equation.

The Outcome

A hearing was scheduled. About an hour before it was set to begin, opposing counsel called.

They were ready to talk.

In that conversation, opposing counsel acknowledged what our client had known from the beginning: this was a workers’ compensation case. No hearing necessary. No drawn-out litigation. The insurer agreed to provide the benefits that had been requested and denied back in 2022.

Two years of waiting. Resolved in a single phone call, backed by two years of preparation.

What This Means

Our client will now receive the medical care and compensation she was entitled to from the start. Benefits she should have had in 2022 will finally begin.

For her, this isn’t just a legal outcome. It’s the ability to get proper treatment, to stop paying out of pocket for injuries that weren’t her fault, and to move forward.

Why It Matters That You Have the Right Team

Cases like this one don’t always resolve the way they should. Insurers have experienced legal teams, and their job is to protect the insurer’s bottom line, not yours.

What made the difference here wasn’t luck. It was a careful, methodical approach: documenting the injury properly, understanding how pre-existing conditions interact with workplace injuries under Nevada law, and knowing exactly when and how to use an independent medical examination to shift the facts of a case.

At Shook & Stone, our workers’ compensation team has handled hundreds of cases where insurers tried to deny or minimize legitimate claims. We know how these defenses are built, and we know how to dismantle them.