Tag Archives: temporary partial disability

Employers can’t play the COVID card to get out of paying workers’ comp benefits

Posted on April 5, 2021 by Jon Rehm

During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, it appears that some employers told their injured workers something to the effect of “I know you’re hurt and can’t do your job anymore. Normally we would have light duty for you, but because of the pandemic we don’t have work. So why don’t you just apply for unemployment.”

So what’s wrong with that scenario? The answer is that worker should be receiving workers’ compensation benefits – specifically temporary total or temporary partial disability benefits – when they are under a doctors care and unable to work because of an injury.

While the COVID-19 pandemic was and is a unique situation, the law has answered many of the questions raised by COVID-19 in earlier cases. At least in Nebraska, a plant closure or lack of overall work with an employer is not a legal defense to paying temporary disability benefits.

Temporary disability and unemployment during the pandemic

Normally workers compensation is a better deal for injured workers than unemployment for a few reasons. One, higher benefit rates and two the fact that workers’ compensation benefits are exempt from taxes while typically unemployment benefits are taxable.

But COVID-relief legislation has changed that equation somewhat. The federal government has supplemented meager state unemployment benefits and exempted some unemployment benefits from taxes. Nebraska law also prohibits workers from getting unemployment while collecting temporary total disability.

So, sure an argument can be made that an injured worker is better off on unemployment than workers’ compensation. But if a worker collects unemployment after a work injury, does that mean they can’t come back and collect temporary disability after an injury?

Collecting temporary disability and unemployment: timing is everything

Under Nebraska law a worker who collects unemployment after a work injury, but is denied temporary disability by their employer can be awarded temporary disability without it effecting what they collected in unemployment. So in some sense, you can double collect unemployment and temporary disability. But you can’t collect them at the same time. Timing is everything.

Conversely, an employee can claim unemployment after temporary benefits expire. Unemployment is one way to lessen the effects of the delay between the end of temporary disability and the beginning of permanent disability. But the delays in processing unemployment benefits caused by the pandemic make that a less effective strategy.

Permanent disability and unemployment

In theory a worker can collect permanent disability and unemployment together. I think a worker is on solid legal footing if they are collecting benefits for a scheduled member injury. An employee claiming workers compensation benefits on an injury on loss of earning power basis faces a more difficult time obtaining unemployment. Normally a worker needs to show they are able and available to work to obtain unemployment. It’s hard to square that with a claim you are permanently and totally disabled due the purposes of workers compensation.

Granted, during the pandemic unemployment benefits were paid out regardless of ability to work. However states have been aggressive in trying collect supposed overpayments of unemployment benefits back from citizens. Workers who collecting workers compensation benefits should be cautious in claiming unemployment and seek legal counsel before doing so.

Debates over extended unemployment mirror issues in workers’ compensation

Posted on August 31, 2020 by Jon Rehm

White House Economic Adviser Larry Kudlow (photo credit to ABC News)

Congress is still working to extend enhanced unemployment benefits in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that expired in July. I believe the debates over extending unemployment benefits parallel issues debated in the world of workers’ compensation.

Secondary gain and 70 percent

Critics of the recently expired $600 per week federal supplemental unemployment benefits argue the benefits discourage work. Insurance types also argue that workers compensation benefits discourage work. In many claims these attitudes find their way into medical records when doctors describe workers as malingering. A related concept is known as secondary gain.

White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow proposed capping unemployment benefits at 70 percent of salary. Kudlow believes this rate of payments doesn’t discourage work. It so happens that workers compensation benefits in Nebraska, and most other states, are limited to two-thirds of an employee’s average pay. So under Kudlow’s assumption, workers compensation benefits shouldn’t discourage work.

But I doubt being confronted by their own logic is going to change insurance company practices and attitudes. Insurers and self-insured will push employees to come back to work as soon as possible even if it means commuting long distances or relocating to perform meaningless work. Some employers also like to force injured workers to perform volunteer work rather than receive workers’ compensation benefits.

Supplemental unemployment and temporary partial disability

The Republican plan to cap unemployment benefits at 70 percent of wages requires states to individually calculate benefit levels for each clamant. Democrats argue this would create administrative hassles for state agencies determining unemployment benefits. Democrats argue that a flat supplemental rate is simpler to administer.

The dilemma of supplemental unemployment mirrors the dilemma of temporary partial disability or TPD. Employees are entitled to TPD when they are working for less money than they were earning before accident. TPD is meant to make up the difference between the two wage rates.

Paying temporary partial disability benefits also crates administrative hassles because it requires close cooperation between HR departments and insurance companies. Often times the difficulties of paying temporary partial disability benefits means that workers don’t receive temporary partial disability benefits.

Of course, as unemployment soars short-staffed state departments of labor have struggled to process claims and pay benefits in a timely manner. Adding more difficulty in determining unemployment benefit rates means that these delays could continue.

How to get paid regular wages for missing work due to a medical visit in a workers’ compensation case

Posted on February 24, 2020 by Jon Rehm

Can an injured worker claim their regular pay if they go to a medical appointment as part of their workers compensation claim? The answer is yes. But like most legal questions there are always qualifications.

Why you can get paid wages for workers’ compensation medical visits
First, per the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) and federal regulation 29 CFR 785.43, getting paid for time spent going to a doctor applies when the employee seeks treatment on site or during regular work hours. An employee might have a harder time claiming pay if they are forced to seek medical treatment during non-work hours. But I believe it would be a close and interesting legal issue if time spent going to employer-compelled medical treatment during non-work hours would be covered under the FLSA.

Secondly, per case law, it seems like that medical treatment would need to be expressly authorized and set up by the employer. It might be more difficult for an employee to get paid their wages while taking time off of work for medical treatment in a disputed workers’ compensation case.

Another complication may be if an employee takes paid leave to attend an employer-ordered medical appointment. Arguably since paid leave or paid time off isn’t mandated by law it might be difficult to bring a claim under the FLSA for the forced taking of paid leave. State wage and hour laws like the Nebraska Wage Payment and Collection Act may provide a remedy.

Why wage and hour law can be better than workers’ compensation claims when it comes to wage payment issues

So why would an injured worker want to claim unpaid wages instead of temporary disability? Several reasons, in Nebraska temporary total disability pays two-thirds of your pay and temporary partial disability pays two-thirds the difference between reduced hours and your average weekly wage. But under wage and hour law, a workers can claim their full wages for time spent going to certain medical visits as part of their workers’ compensation claim.

In Nebraska, overtime pay is not taken into account in determining workers compensation benefits. But under the Fair Labor Standards Act an employee can claim overtime pay. The Nebraska Workers compensation act also caps benefit rates at $882 per week. There is no cap to hourly pay under the FLSA.

Nebraska also has a one week waiting period for benefits. In injuries where disability lasts less than six weeks, that first week of disability isn’t paid. There is no waiting period for unpaid wages under the FLSA.

I’ve written about how the Nebraska workers’ compensation act has weak attorney fee and penalty provisions that make it easy for employers to shortchange employees when it comes to workers compensation disability benefit payments. In contrast the FLSA has strong attorney fee and penalty provisions that make it more attractive to bring claims for smaller amounts. Smaller FLSA claims can also be combined into collective action claims. The Nebraska Workers’ Compensation Act, like most of other workers’ compensation laws, does not allow for collective or class action cases.

The only disadvantage of getting wages over workers’ compensation benefits is wages are taxable while workers compensation benefits are not taxable.

How an employee can bring a wage claim for time spent going to the doctor for workers’ compensation case.

The most important part of a wage and hour case for a worker is being able to precisely prove lost time. This should be simple for injured workers as medical visits usually only take place a few times a week at the most. Many injured workers keep track of mileage already as mileage benefits are part of medical benefits under workers’ compensation in Nebraska. If you can keep track of mileage, you can also keep track of time spent going to medical appointments. If an injured worker turns in mileage to their attorney or workers compensation claims department, there is no reason they can’t turn over claims for unpaid wages to Human Resources directly or through their attorneys.

Anti-retaliation provisions

Retaliation is always a concern of workers who exercise their rights at work. Fortunately, the FLSA makes it unlawful for an employer to retaliate against an employee for exercising their rights under the law. Nebraska and most other states prohibit employers from retaliating against workers who file workers compensation as well.

What happens when an employee needs family leave after a work injury?

Posted on September 20, 2018 by Jon Rehm

Taking leave to care for a family member can be complicated by a work injury

Work injuries create all sorts of unexpected complications for injured worker. One complication is what happens when an injured employee on alternate or light duty needs to take time away from work for a family emergency.

If the employee has been employed with the same employer for a year, worked more than 1250 hours during that year and the employer has more than 50 employees within a 75 mile radius, then the employee could take leave for up to 12 weeks under the Family Medical Leave Act without worrying about losing their job.

If the employee or employer is not covered by the Family Medical Leave Act, then things can get sticky for an injured worker as the employer is not obligated to provide unpaid family leave. In Nebraska, an employer is still obligated to pay temporary disability regardless of whether an employee is fired or quit. But employers, especially ones that are self-insured for workers’ compensation, ignore the law which means that an employee has to wait for a hearing to get temporary disability benefits paid. There may also be a question as to whether an employer’s ability to accommodate a work injury but for a termination or quit should factor into how much an employee should get paid for temporary disability.

Although I haven’t encountered this issue, I suspect an FMLA eligibile employee who took family leave while on light duty could have an employer deny payment of temporary disability. Ultimately I believe a court would award temporary disability in that circumstance. In other words, the analysis for the purpsoses of workers’ compensation benefits would be the same even if the new employee has less job protections for taking family leave.

Short-term employees are already more vulnerable to injuries. Short-term employees also targeted for termination under policies that fire new employees for having “lost time” or “recordable” accidents. While you can, and I have, argued successfully those types of policies retaliate against new workers who get hurt at work, you can’t make the same argument about new employees who get fired for taking family leave. The law excludes new employees from the protections of the Family Medical Leave Act. The law allows employees to discriminate against new employees who need family leave. That’s not to say than a new employee who gets fired after taking leave can’t even have a wrongful termination case, but there would have to evidence of some unlawful motives for an employee to bring that case.

Can I Collect Unemployment and Workers’ Compensation Benefits at the Same Time?

Posted on July 18, 2016 by Todd Bennett

In Nebraska, an injured worker who is laid off, fired or leaves a job for good cause can collect unemployment benefits and still receive Temporary Partial Disability (TPD) benefits and Permanent Partial Disability (PPD) benefits from the workers’ compensation insurance company. The Nebraska Labor Department unemployment law does not allow a worker to receive unemployment during the same week the person is paid Temporary Total Disability (TTD) workers’ compensation payments.

To receive unemployment benefits, the injured worker must be ready, willing and able to work. As long as injured worker is ready, willing and able to work within one’s own restrictions, that worker can receive unemployment benefits during the same week that they are entitled to TPD and PPD benefits.

If a person is totally unable to work and getting TTD benefits, that person cannot receive unemployment benefits since they, by definition, are not ready, willing and able to work.

Under the workers’ compensation laws, it is also important to remember that compensation benefits cannot be offset with what is paid under the unemployment benefits. For guidance, please refer to Nebraska Statute 48-130 that supports this rule of law.

If you have been laid off or terminated, you are still entitled to workers’ compensation benefits in the above situations.

If you have any questions, call us for a free consultation.

Five Ways Employees Can Navigate the Hassle of Temporary Partial Disability

Posted on November 19, 2015 by Jon Rehm

Return-to-work issues seem to involve the blind leading the blind, even in the best circumstances. Doctors, especially general practitioners, are unsure what exact work restrictions are needed for an injured employee. Employers may not always have a good idea, assuming they are acting in good faith, what the requirements for the job are as well.

This can be further complicated if an employee attempts to come back to work part time from temporary disability. Not only do you have to navigate the issues of whether the job is appropriate, but you also have to deal with how much you get paid for what is called temporary partial disability.

What is temporary partial disability?

Temporary partial disability represents two-thirds of the difference between what you are making and your pre-injury average weekly wage. Though this seems simple in theory, it can be complicated for many reasons. Here are five things that employees can do to ensure they are being paid the proper amount of temporary partial disability:

Keep track of your pay stubs: Temporary partial disability is difference between your pay and your average weekly wage. So you need to know your pay in order to determine that amount. Sure employers can do this, but sometimes employers, especially if they are self-insured, have incentive to drag their feet. Also, many companies will outsource their payroll so that information may not be readily available to them. The best solution is to have that information on hand yourself. Having your pay stub will also allow you to know your pay period, which is also important.
Keep track of your hours on daily basis and/or get a copy of time card: Temporary disability is usually paid weekly. Many employers will pay every other week. The pay periods between your paycheck and your disability check might also vary. Sometimes checks will get delayed because an insurance company legitimately has to investigate what benefits have to be paid for one week. You can simplify this for them by providing your time card. The U.S. Department of Labor has a good app for this that you might want to use that tracks hours worked.
If your job is too hard to do physically, make a doctor’s appointment right away to see if you can get your restrictions changed: Delaying a visit to the doctor may not only damage your health; it can also cost you money. An employer can attempt to deny and delay payment between the time where you stopped working at a “light duty” job and when a doctor took you off work and you start receiving temporary total disability again. You may not be able to recover this money, short of going to court, but you do have some control over keeping these gap periods as short as possible.
Turn in your time cards and time sheets to your workers’ compensation attorney or insurer: Don’t assume that your employer is turning over your hours to their workers’ compensation insurer. Be sure that you (or your lawyer) are turning in that information to ensure prompt and full payment.
Make sure that you know your average weekly wage: Workers’ compensation benefits are generally some percentage of your average pay over a time period. Employers will often turn over this information to their workers’ compensation insurer for them to determine how much you should be paid. If you think you are getting shorted, ask the insurer for the basis of their calculations and run it by an experienced workers’ compensation lawyer in your state or the state where your claim has been filed.

Workers' Compensation Watch

Published by Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm

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Tag Archives: temporary partial disability

Employers can’t play the COVID card to get out of paying workers’ comp benefits

Debates over extended unemployment mirror issues in workers’ compensation

How to get paid regular wages for missing work due to a medical visit in a workers’ compensation case

What happens when an employee needs family leave after a work injury?

Can I Collect Unemployment and Workers’ Compensation Benefits at the Same Time?

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