Archive for category: Workers’ Compensation

The first question to ask is whether your employer falls under the Workers’ Compensation Act.  Generally speaking, an employer with three or more employees is required to carry workers’ compensation insurance.  As a result, if your employer has only two employees, they are most likely not required to carry workers’ compensation insurance and any injury you sustain would not be covered under workers’ compensation.  However, it will depend on the structure of the legal entity of the business and they type of business, so this number may be more or less.

You must also be an employee to receive workers’ compensation benefits.  Contract “employees” or independent contractors are not covered by the workers’ compensation act, so an injury incurred while working as a contract “employee” may not be covered by workers’ compensation

Next, is the injury sustained by an accident while performing your assigned job functions?  This question can best be answered by comparing what injuries can and cannot be covered by workers’ compensation.  Injuries you incur while on the job and while performing your job duties are generally included in a workers’ compensation claim.

Examples of Injuries Included in Workers’ Compensation:

If you work in a warehouse and a crate falls and breaks your foot as you are attempting to remove it from a shelf, the injury would be considered a workers’ compensation claim.

You are a sales person and while at a customer’s location you are accidentally hit by a forklift, this would most likely be a workers’ compensation claim.

Examples of Injuries NOT Included in Workers’ Compensation:

You are chasing a fellow employee in the parking lot after work, and you trip, fall and break your foot.  This would most likely not be considered a workers’ compensation claim.  You are obviously at work, but you are not performing your job duties when the accident occurred.

You are a sales person and you stopped to buy gas.  When you went into the store to purchase a cup of coffee, you slip and fall and you break your leg.  You may have a claim against the store where you fell, but you would most likely not have a workers’ compensation claim.

As you can tell by these examples, a workers’ compensation claim requires the accident occurred while you were an employee performing your job functions. Like most areas of the law, workers’ compensation claims can become pretty complex. To learn more, contact our Charlotte, NC workers’ compensation lawyers or our Greensboro, NC workers’ compensation lawyers.

No, your employer cannot fire you simply because you have been injured at work and filed a workers’ compensation claim. Any employer who uses retaliatory action such as terminating you from your job due to an injury sustained on the job could be violating a North Carolina law known as the Retaliatory Employment Discrimination Act, also known as “REDA”. If an employer violates this law by terminating you because of your injury on the job, you should contact a workers’ compensation attorney immediately. In this event, you can bring a court action against the employer and seek damages from the employer. The court may order you to be reinstated to your old position and order that you be compensated for your for lost wages, benefits, and seniority.

Not technically. However, you may have to go in front of the group who hears workers’ compensation claims in North Carolina called the Industrial Commission. Workers’ Compensation is a unique area of law. Unlike other areas of the law, if you have a workers’ compensation claim you do not go in front of a jury or even a traditional judge. The current workers’ compensation laws were developed to keep claims of injured workers out of the court.

One of the main reasons that the Workers’ Compensation Act keeps work injury claims out of the traditional court system is to increase efficiency in handling injured workers’ claims. Someone injured in a car accident or by a medical doctor may have to wait years until their case goes in front of a judge or jury. The government understood that someone working to provide for their family cannot go that long without a reliable income. Therefore, when someone is injured on the job in North Carolina they have their workers’ compensation case go in front of one of the Industrial Commission’s Deputy Commissioners if it does not settle beforehand at mediation. The Deputy Commissioner is similar to what most people think of as a judge in regular court.

This hearing in front of one of the Deputy Commissioners of the Industrial Commission will be very similar to a trial, though. We will present your case to the Deputy Commissioner using exhibits, witness testimony and they will eventually hear from your treating physician by way of depositions.

The Deputy Commissioner will review all of the exhibits and testimony, including the treating physician’s deposition, and make a determination on compensability.