Workers comp. question

[mistysue]

Say you have an injury that your boss knows about. Now you have certain restrictions for things you aren't supposed to do- which you did NOT tell your boss. (ie- no reaching above your head to take a book from a shelf) One morning you reach overhead to take a book down and you aggravate the injury, causing it to spread. Now there is both the original and a new injury.
Is this something that you can claim workman's comp for?
Being a small business, if you take significant time off of work, is there anything you can do if they replace you and you aren't needed anymore?

(Just for when it comes up, I know you aren't a bunch of lawyers and I'm not coming here for absolute legal advice. I am just hoping somebody may know more than I do about these things)

 

[disneychrista]

Why if you KNEW you were not to reach above your head did you do so?

ANY injury that happens at Work is subject to Worker's Comp. You should file a claim. However, don't be surprised if your boss doesn't let you come back to work until cleared without restrictions.

 

[mistysue]

It wasn't me. It is a girl I work with. She told one coworker that she wasn't supposed to do that a few months ago.
When the other girl said something we were all standing around going "why did she do that and why did she never say anything?" She is the one who arranged her workspace too. She put the books she needs daily up on a shelf.

 

[tlh0726]

You told your place of employment about an injury but didn't disclose any type of restrictions due to this injury, then you did something to cause further injury knowing full well that you were not suppose to thus causing additional injury and then collecting funds for not be able to work?
In my opinion this could be taken as a form of fraud.
I am sure that the workmen's comp will be in touch with whatever doctor or treatment center that you will be using, and it may just come out that you had restrictions that you did not follow. Do you want to take that risk?


started to post and got distracted with the kids and did not see your 2nd post that it was not you.

did she get another injury from doing this or are you just questioning a scenario?
Personally, if the girl is still working and doing this, I would be letting someone know what she told a coworker about the restrictions and let them question her about it.

 

[bradisgoofy]

Comp laws are different from state to state so I can only comment in general. If you are on a current comp claim with your current employer then they should know your restrictions since they will have copies of all your treatments. If you aggravate a current injury it is still workers comp. If the company wants to keep you working under the restrictions they can bring you back on "light duty" but must pay you the exact same wages you were making at the time of the injury. If they don't then the comp insurance company must make up the difference. You can not be fired for a workers comp claim but they do not need to hold your job if you are going to be off long term. When you are cleared to return to work they must give you a comparable paying job. Again, this is not legal advice just general information.

 

[Judique]

Say you have an injury that your boss knows about. Now you have certain restrictions for things you aren't supposed to do- which you did NOT tell your boss. (ie- no reaching above your head to take a book from a shelf) One morning you reach overhead to take a book down and you aggravate the injury, causing it to spread. Now there is both the original and a new injury.
Is this something that you can claim workman's comp for?
Being a small business, if you take significant time off of work, is there anything you can do if they replace you and you aren't needed anymore?

(Just for when it comes up, I know you aren't a bunch of lawyers and I'm not coming here for absolute legal advice. I am just hoping somebody may know more than I do about these things)

There is not enough information here. Did the original injury happen at this workplace, or is it from a previous job?

If it is the same job, why would your boss not know that you have work restrictions? You would have had to fill out the original paperwork with them. They would have had access to your information.

If you are injured, you should fill out a claim. You don't know where it's going to go until the claims adjusters take a look at it. The flip side is that if you don't and you need to seek care and use regular health insurance, the regular insurance may refuse to pay if they find out the injury is work related.

Your last question would be answered by seeking legal advice.

Good luck.

 

[mrspaha]

I'm not a lawyer, or a small businessman either. But, I don't think it would be right to file a workman's comp claim. I believe it's up to the employer to provide a safe work environment, which it sound like he does; it's just that she did something that she physically shouldn't have done. I don't think it's really fair for his workman's comp insurance to have to pay for what she did to herself. If he's a small businessman, he's probably struggling in this economy, and if it's a small company, his insurance rates will probably really go up a lot because of it. It really depends on how serious the injury is, and how much it's going to cost. I hope she's not hoping to milk this for extra time off, and pay for expenses that aren't necessarily something the employer is responsible for.

 

[debsays]

That would be aggrevating and existing injury. If someone has work restrictions they SHOULD present it to who handles the work-related injury claims they in turn would contact that person's supervisor/manager to see if they can accomodate the restrictions. Usually a company has a time frame that one can continue with what is called "light duty". Usually about 3 mos. and then if they can no longer accomodate then you'd go out on full work comp.

 

[debsays]

Forgot to say that an employer has up to one year to file a work-related injury. Whether the worker's comp ins. carrier accepts the claim is another thing. It's best to file a work-related injury as soon as it happens, within 24 hours.

 

[waltsgirl]

My husband is an Atty and deals with workers comp claims at his job. He agrees not information given. Did the original injury happen at work? If so, her boss should know of any restrictions due to paper work for returning to work and restrictions generally being listed on those. If the original injury did not occur at work then given what other posters have said, every state is different and it would just depend on if the new injury would be covered or not. She should file and then it would be up the company to fight it or not.

 

[mistysue]

The original problem isn't from work. She has a ruptured disk so for a while was going to therapy, but didn't leave work and said she wasn't supposed to lift heave things so she doesn't lift stuff. It has been years since it happened. She only told the one girl that if she lifts her arm a certain way while looking up her arm sort of goes limp and she is in pain.

So she did that and dropped to the floor in pain. We gave her ice, she took some medications and we called her doctor for her. He said go to the ER if she was in a lot of pain.

The part that made everybody think it was sort of sketchy was that recently she has been complaining that her neck hurts a lot and as she was sitting there after this happened she said she recently got a new doctor and was talking about how her insurance charges her so much money to get scans done... well we called the insurance company to open a claim for her right away - she went to the ER and sure enough she has a 2nd ruptured disc. Just from reaching her arm up!

So there is this funny question of did she do that by accident and spontaneously rupture a disc after her neck has been hurting more and more recently? OR did she purposely do this little thing so she could file a claim for the problem she already has? They don't have anything showing the second ruptured disk before because she didn't want to pay the copay for the scan. This way she got one for free.

 

[waltsgirl]

Really there is nothing to do except have the claim filed and then the investigation can start if they deem it necessary.

 

[Judique]

Really there is nothing to do except have the claim filed and then the investigation can start if they deem it necessary.

True.

All the speculation around the water cooler isn't worth a hill of beans. More then likely she'll get treatment under her claim until the wc doc examines her and it's agreed that treatment has gone as far as possible to alleviate the problem and then they'll settle her claim, probably with some relatively minor award for the second disc. And - very soon she'll probably have a lawyer working on a contingency basis.

 

[Aristomommy]

If this injury happened on this same job, I would think these limitations should be known to the employer once her dr released her back to work. Why would she not disclose these restrictions and risk a re-injury is beyond me? If this happened on another job, she should have informed her new job about this as well. This is a case of an employee shooting themselves in the foot by doing something they should not. But she could very well file an injury claim for an aggravation of an existing condition. In my state, it would be difficult to add a new condition based on these facts alone though.

 

[dsny1mom]

WC in all states is no fault. It will be up to a doctor to link the current injury to the current work place. The WC insurance company, can if they choose, send the employee to what is called an independent medical examiner to try disprove that the injury is linked to the work place.

dsny1mom