Employer fails to notify injured worker about his “light duty” work

Some Virginia workers who are hurt on-the-job may not be able to return to work right away.  However, after they’ve had some time to heal their doctor may allow them to return to “light duty” or restricted duty work.

This means that they can work, just not at the same capacity as they used to.  The doctor will specify what the worker can and cannot do, and the employer is required to try and find a position meeting the employee’s restrictions.

An interesting case happened in Kansas, when an employer cut off a worker’s permanent partial disability benefits.  Why did they do this?  They claimed that the worker failed to perform the light duty work they had for him after his doctor cleared him for this type of work.

First lesson: if your employer offers you light duty work that meets your doctor’s criteria for your work restrictions, you must take it or you could lose your benefits!

In this case, the employer lost and had to reinstate the worker’s benefits.  Why?  Because the employer and the worker’s doctor exchanged communication about the type of work that the partially disabled worker would be able to do.  However, there was no evidence in this case that the worker himself was told that his employer had a light-duty position available that was approved by his doctor.

Second lesson: you can’t be held responsible for what happens if your employer keeps you in the dark about your workers’ comp status.

Need help with your Virginia workers’ comp claim?  Please contact us to talk with an experienced Virginia workers’ comp lawyer about your case.

Does family of worker killed in carpool crash get workers’ comp?

These days, many employers in Culpeper, Warrenton, and other areas of Virginia encourage workers to ride-share or carpool to work.  It’s a way to be “green” and cut down on traffic congestion on our busy Fauquier county roads.

So, what happens if your company has encouraged you to ride-share or carpool, and you are killed while riding in somebody else’s car?  Is your employer somehow responsible for your death – and do they owe your estate workers’ compensation death benefits – because they encouraged you to carpool?

In one recent lawsuit the answer was no, the employer is not responsible for a worker’s death in a carpool accident.  The estate for the deceased employee argued that the employer had assumed responsibility for the employee when they encouraged workers to carpool.  This means, argued the estate, that the accident happened in the scope of the worker’s employment.

The court did not agree with this reasoning.  Why?

• The vehicle involved in the fatal accident was not a company-owned vehicle
• The employer had no contract in place to transport workers from home to office
• The employer did not pay a driver to transport workers
• The employee driving the car involved in the crash was not working on the day that the accident happened.

So, just because your boss thinks it is great that you carpool, don’t expect workers’ comp benefits if you are hurt in a ride-share accident.  Unless, of course the carpool ride was within the scope of your work.  Not sure?  Ask an experienced Virginia workers comp attorney to go over your situation with you.

Injured on the job while high? You may still get workers comp!

This crazy sounding workers’ comp story holds a solid lesson for Virginia workers.  A worker is in charge of feeding grizzly bears.  Before his shift one day, he decides to smoke some marijuana.  That day while he is feeding the bears as part of his normal work routine, he is attacked by the bears.  He is seriously injured.

Question: Does his employer owe him workers’ comp benefits?

Answer:  You may find this hard to believe, but the answer is YES. 

This case went to court.  His employer claimed that he was high on the job and therefore the accident was his fault – so he was not owed workers’ comp benefits.

The worker, however, argued that the fact that he smoked pot had nothing to do with the bear attack.  And he had a point.  While drug use is illegal, there was no proof that the worker’s pot smoking in any way contributed to him being mauled by a bear.

This is a great lesson for injured Virginia workers: even if you were found to have alcohol or drugs in your system, your employer still has to show that the accident happened because of the alcohol or drugs.  Just being tipsy or high by itself is not reason enough to deny workers’ comp benefits.

The bottom line: always talk to a lawyer before your give up on your workers’ comp case.  There may be more to the law than you realize.

Do pre-existing conditions matter for Virginia workers comp claims?

In a word: YES.  A recent ruling in Virginia involving the Fairfax County School Board highlights how pre-existing conditions can impact a workers’ compensation claim decision.

A worker at the school was injured in a fall, hurting her knee.  Her physician assigned her a 37 percent impairment rating in her lower left, which led the Virginia Workers’ Comp commission to assign her permanent partial disability loss benefits.

However, when the impairment rating was assigned the fact that the woman had previously received a total knee replacement for an injury not related to work was not taken into consideration.  The woman’s employer argued that the award was erroneous because her previous knee replacement surgery had not been taken into consideration.

The Court of Appeals agreed with the employer in this case, noting that an employee can only recover benefits for the amount of impairment caused by the workplace accident – but not for any pre-existing impairments unrelated to the incident.

In this situation the worker was unfortunate enough to sustain a workplace injury to a part of her body that had been injured in the past.  Because she had already gone through a successful knee replacement and her doctor did not account for this fact, she now will not receive compensation for her new injury.

If you find yourself in a similar situation, please take the time to talk to an experienced Virginia workers’ compensation attorney.  A good claims lawyer will help you navigate the workers’ comp minefield, making sure that you are not taken advantage of by a stingy employer or insurance company.

Clumsy employees deserve workers’ comp benefits, too

If you consider yourself a bit of a klutz or if you are a little clumsy, you know how easy it can be to get hurt.  Now, if you are a clumsy employee who gets hurt on the job, do you still deserve workers’ compensation benefits – even if your clumsiness may have contributed to the accident?

The case of Vacuum Depositing v. Dever tells us that yes, clumsy employees deserve workers’ compensation benefits too.  In this case, a woman was hurt when she fell in the company break room.  She claims that there was trash on the floor from an overflowing garbage can, and she slipped on a piece of paper.

Her employer, however, denied that there was any trash on the floor and claimed that the woman was clumsy and wore high-heeled shoes.   They did not believe that they owed her workers’ comp benefits simply because she was clumsy.

The court found in favor of the employee, because the employer failed to provide “substantial” evidence that the woman was solely to blame for the fall.  In many situations, workers hurt in an unexplained workplace fall can receive workers’ comp benefits – don’t let your employer or the insurance company tell you otherwise.

If you need help with a Virginia workers’ compensation claim, please contact the law offices of Dulaney, Lauer & Thomas, LLP.

Virginia lawmakers vote down bill aimed at protecting workers suffering serious brain injury

Claire Pierce is worried that her husband’s unexpected death as the result of a serious brain injury was in vain.  Her husband Arthur Pierce’s tragic death only 16 months after he was found injured next to his tractor trailer highlights an inadequacy of the current Virginia workers’ compensation laws.

Unfortunately, because Mr. Pierce’s head injuries were so severe, he was unable to tell anyone how he was injured.  Without his testimony or the testimony of any witnesses, his family was unable to prove that he was injured as a result of his job and their workers’ compensation claim was denied.

What is frustrating to Mrs. Pierce and her family is that there is already a law in Virginia that allows families of victims found dead during the course of their employment to collect workers’ compensation benefits.  The presumption in these fatality cases is that without any evidence to the contrary, the worker’s death can be attributed to their job and therefore compensation is warranted.  Mrs. Pierce and sympathetic lawmakers were hoping to extend a similar protection to workers injured so seriously that they are unable to explain what happened to them.

Sadly, no such protection will be extended for workers suffering form severe brain injuries.  Mrs. Pierce, in remarks prepared for a Virginia Senate committee neatly sums up her unfortunate situation: “If my husband had died at the scene of his workplace accident, we would have been paid benefits, but because he fought for life for 16 months, the taxpayers, my employer, our health insurance carrier and I are bearing the full financial weight of this tragedy… the more severely injured a person is, the better the chance that the claim will be denied.”

Tragic words for an unimaginably tragic situation.

Culpeper preacher pleads guilty to workers’ comp fraud

If you had to describe a typical case of workers’ comp fraud, what would it look like?  Would it be a greedy big business owner trying to save a few dollars on insurance premiums?  Or, would it be a down-on-his-luck construction worker who faked an injury to make a little extra money for his family?  A recent case in Virginia just goes to show that stereotypes are unreliable when it comes to sniffing out fraud.

A Culpeper Virginia preacher has pleaded guilty to committing workers’ compensation fraud.  And this case isn’t simply a matter of a little misunderstanding – the preacher has been collecting workers’ comp checks since 2000, from two different insurance companies.  In addition, the preacher and his wife were found to have been manipulating the church pay roll, workers’ comp and their tax returns to benefit themselves financially.

What does this mean to Virginia workers who really need workers’ compensation benefits?  Fraud cases like this just drive up premiums for honest businesses and reduce the money and benefits available to help truly injured workers.  The preacher’s crime wasn’t just against the State; it was against all injured workers in Virginia who could have benefited from the money he so fraudulently received.

If you are having problems with your own workers’ compensation claim, please contact us immediately.  We’ll make sure you are treated fairly and get the help you need.