The Puerto Rico Compensation System for Work-Related Accidents Act provides certain economic benefits and job reinstatement rights to employees who become temporarily disabled due to work-related illness, injury or condition. Employers are required to pay mandatory premiums to a public corporation known as the State Insurance Fund Corporation (“SIFC”). In addition to economic benefits, the SIFC also provides the medical and rehabilitation services that ill or injured employees may need. This government system may not be substituted with private coverage and tends to be a source of significant frustration for employers. While in exchange for the payment of the mandatory premiums, employers are granted immunity from any civil action and damages resulting from employees work-related accidents, common insurance law principles are often not applicable, and coverage and the corresponding employer immunity may be denied for any number of reasons. When this happens, Aguiló LLC is highly experienced in handling all sort of workers’ compensation issues and litigation before all appropriate government agencies and courts. This includes the asset to our clients of having in our staff our Senior Counsel José J. Santiago-Meléndez, widely acknowledged as Puerto Rico’s preeminent workers’ compensation counsel, with over forty (40) years of experience advising employers and litigating workers’ compensation claims at the administrative and judicial levels.