Workers Comp & SRT Hearing Law Firm in Buenos Aires

If you had a workplace accident or developed an occupational disease in Argentina, the SRT Medical Board is the mandatory gateway before any lawsuit. And you cannot walk in alone: the law requires you to be represented by counsel and, at the same time, puts your lawyer's fees on the insurer. You advance nothing.

1. What your lawyer does at each stage

The legal work does not start at the final hearing. It starts much earlier, reviewing what the insurer did with your file:

• Reading the accident report and the insurer's answer: whether it accepted the claim, rejected it in writing, or simply left you waiting.
• Choosing the Medical Board. Not a minor detail: you may choose between the Board for your home address, the one for the place where you actually worked, or the one where you habitually reported (sec. 1, Law 27,348). That choice is yours.
• Building the filing before the Jurisdictional Medical Board: assembling the medical records, the imaging and the evidence of the event, and attending the medical examination with you.
• Checking the figure before you sign. At the settlement hearing you will be told an amount. Someone has to verify that the amount comes from applying the statute rather than from rounding down.
• Appeal to the Central Medical Board or directly to the labor courts, at your option, if the rating or the amount does not hold up (sec. 2, Law 27,348).
• A complementary civil action against the employer, where health and safety rules were breached and the evidence supports it.

2. What it costs you (and why the insurer pays)

Nothing, and this is not a marketing promise: it is the last paragraph of section 1 of Law 27,348. Professional fees for legal representation and any other expenses you incur in taking part before the medical boards are borne by the workers' compensation insurer. On top of that, all evidence produced at any stage is free for the worker (sec. 2, Law 27,348), and the proceeding before the medical boards is free of charge, including travel and complementary studies (sec. 21(4), Law 24,557).

One more rule worth knowing: in the court proceedings governed by Title I of Law 27,348, contingency-fee agreements measured as a share of the award are expressly prohibited. If someone offers to take your Medical Board case "for 20% of what you collect," they are offering something the statute does not allow.

3. Mandatory, unless you were working off the books

For a registered worker, the Jurisdictional Medical Board is the mandatory prior administrative stage, exclusive of any other intervention. You do not reach the courts without going through it. But there is an exception many people never hear about: workers in unregistered employment relationships with uninsured employers are not required to complete that stage and have direct access to the courts (sec. 1, Law 27,348).

The distinction changes the entire strategy from day one. On the administrative route, the pace is set by the Board's deadlines. On the direct judicial route open to the unregistered worker, the clock that matters is the two-year limitation period in section 44 of Law 24,557, and the evidence to prepare is different: before the injury, you have to prove the employment relationship itself. That is why the time to get advice is before you file anything administrative, not after.

4. How the proceeding works and what to bring

The general shape is this: filing before the Board you choose; production of evidence and a medical examination; an opinion setting the impairment rating; and, where impairment is recognised, a hearing before the Settlement Service where the amount is disclosed. The Board must issue its decision within sixty administrative business days from the first properly completed filing, a term that may be extended only for factual issues relating to proof of the accident or the occupational disease, duly substantiated (sec. 3, Law 27,348).

Those deadlines are peremptory. If they lapse without a decision, the appeal route in section 2 opens automatically, and unjustified delay constitutes serious misconduct by those responsible for the Board. For the detail of each stage, see the guide on the Jurisdictional Medical Board of the SRT.

What to bring to the first meeting

The fuller the file, the lower the chance the Board asks for further information and the case drags on. What helps: your ID; the accident or illness report filed with the insurer; the insurer's written rejection, if any; the record of the first medical attention; any discharge certificate or opinion already issued; imaging studies and clinical history; and your pay slips for the year before the accident. Those last ones are not paperwork for its own sake: the base income is the monthly average of all wages accrued during the year before the first disabling manifestation, restated month by month by the RIPTE wage index (sec. 12, Law 24,557). A misreported year is a miscalculated award.

5. Your pay while treatment lasts

While the injury temporarily prevents you from performing your usual tasks, you are on Temporary Work Disability and receive a monthly benefit equal to the monthly value of the base income, plus family allowances. The first ten days are paid by your employer; from then on the insurer pays, and also covers medical benefits in kind (sec. 13, Law 24,557).

That status is not open-ended. It ends by medical discharge, by a declaration of Permanent Work Disability, by the lapse of two years from the first disabling manifestation, or by death (sec. 7, Law 24,557, as replaced by sec. 10 of Law 27,348).

There is a detail in the same section worth keeping at hand: if you returned to work within those two years and go on leave again for the same accident or disease, your Temporary Work Disability continues until discharge, a declaration of permanent disability, death, or until two effective years of leave are completed, adding together every period in which you were unable to work. Relapses neither restart the count nor close it: they add up. That reading is what you argue when the insurer cuts off the payments.

6. The settlement hearing: the decisive moment

When the opinion recognises a final permanent impairment rating, you are summoned to a hearing before the Settlement Service, chaired by an SRT staff attorney. Attendance by the insurer and by you is mandatory, and that is where you are told the amount you are entitled to receive (Annex I, sec. 2, Law 27,348).

Three things happen at that hearing that almost nobody explains beforehand:

• No settlement below the statutory figure can be approved. The Settlement Service may not approve an agreement for an amount lower than what results from strict application of Law 24,557 (Annex I, sec. 3). If the number falls short, there is a basis for not signing.
• Signing the settlement means exercising the election under sec. 4 of Law 26,773. The record expressly states it. In other words: signing closes the door on the civil action.
• If your disagreement is with the rating, a record is drawn up and the appeal route under section 2 opens. If the disagreement is only with the amount, the parties may agree on a higher figure.

Once the settlement is approved, the money must be made available to you within five days of notice of the approval (Annex I, sec. 4, Law 27,348), deposited into your payroll account (sec. 17, Law 27,348). Five days, not fifteen.

7. When a civil action against the employer makes sense

The workers' compensation award is scheduled: it comes from fixed formulas, with no discussion of fault. Where the accident happened because health and safety rules were breached, a separate route of full compensation exists, backed by the Supreme Court's doctrine in the "Aquino" ruling. That route requires proving the employer's liability, but it can yield broader compensation than the scheduled award.

Now the point that reshapes the whole strategy: section 4 of Law 26,773 establishes an exclusive election between the compensation under the workers' compensation regime and whatever may be owed under other liability systems. The systems are not cumulative, and collecting money or filing suit under either one means the election has already been made.

Note the nuance, because it causes the most confusion: collecting temporary disability payments during treatment or receiving medical benefits in kind does not amount to having elected (sec. 5, Law 26,773). Signing the settlement does. That is why the analysis of the evidence on employer liability has to be done before the hearing, not after. After it, you have chosen.

8. Signs you need to move now

Where we practise

The firm represents workers before the Medical Boards and in the National Labor Courts of the City of Buenos Aires and the Province of Buenos Aires, from its office at Maipú 42, CABA. Representation runs from the first report to the insurer through to settlement or, where needed, judicial appeal, and covers workplace accidents and commuting accidents. If what worries you is how long you have left to claim, see the guide on the deadline to report an accident to the insurer.

Frequently Asked Questions