Tag Archives: return to work

Work hardening acknowledges some of the uncertainties of return to work after a work injury

Posted on by

Work hardening is usually a good idea to help employees return to work after an injury. But not all employees have access to this helpful tool after a work injury.

When does an inured worker heal from a work injury?

What kind of restrictions does an injured workers have from a work injury?

What kind of work will an injured worker be able to do with after an injury?

There are no easy answers for these questions. Unfortunately, I believe the insurance industry likes easy answers to these questions. They particularly like those easy answers that lead them to stop paying temporary benefits and return workers back with no restrictions based on medical evidence they have helped massage or produce.

But one semi-helpful practice that accounts from some shades of grey in the return-to-work process is work hardening.

What is work hardening?

Work hardening is when a medical doctor releases an employee to go back to work part-time and then ratchets up hours and duties over the course of a few weeks or months.

Work hardening stands in contrast to what I call return to work by ambush where an employee gets suddenly shifted from temporary total disability to release to return full duty and/or with no restrictions.

Work hardening allows someone to ease back to into work. Done properly an employee should also be able to collect temporary partial disability benefits while they are working reduced hours during work hardening.

Who gets work hardening?

I see work hardening with larger employers who have some ability to accommodate lighter duty positions. I also see work hardening with employees who are still employed by the employer where they were injured.

This leaves many employees out. Workers for smaller firms often miss out on work hardening. Employees working for employers without light duty may not get work hardening.

More on who does and doesn’t get work hardening.

As stated above, employees generally need to be still be employed to get benefit from work hardening. Many workers don’t have this luxury. A recent Texas Department of Insurance study, shows that an majority of injured workers aren’t working for their employer a year from injury.

One reason is that recovery from an injury often takes longer than the required 12 weeks of job protected leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. The Americans with Disabilities Act makes unpaid leave a reasonable accommodation. But at best ADA leave is a short-term extension of FMLA leave. (I won’t even address workers’ compensation retaliation in this post, but it also plays a factor)

But as I’ve wrote previously, unions often negotiate return-to-work programs that incorporate work-hardening. Heavily unionized industries like meat packing usually have work hardening as well. But even if a union doesn’t expressly negotiate return to work issues, unionized employers and unionized industries typically have relatively liberal leave policies that allow employees to maintain the employment relationship during an extended recovery from a work injury.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , .

The problem with being released back to work from an injury with no restrictions when you still probably have restrictions

Posted on by

Being sent back to work with “no restrictions” can actually make it harder for injured workers to return to work and retain jobs

Recently I read medical records in two separate cases where doctors wrote they were doing my client’s favors by releasing them to work without restrictions when there was evidence of permanent damage or impairment from the injury.

The thought is that a worker with no restrictions will have an easier time returning to work. But in my experience, an inaccurate opinion that a worker has no restrictions makes it harder for an employee to return to work and retain work after an injury.

Vocational rehabilitation and return to work – In Nebraska, a worker who is unable to return back to work at a similar rate of pay because of an injury can be eligible for vocational rehabilitation benefits. Sometimes this means job placement, other times it can be mean re-training or further education. This also means being paid temporary total disability while being involved in a program.

An inaccurate statement from a doctor stating an employee has “no restrictions” makes it harder for an employee to obtain vocational rehabilitation. Nebraska law allows for awards of vocational rehabilitation based on an injured workers’ testimony. But that requires the delay and uncertainty of a hearing.

Sometimes and an employee is released back to work with impairment but no restrictions. The impairment entitles an employee to permanent disability and can be a basis for the Nebraska workers’ compensation court can appoint a counselor for vocational rehabilitation services. But without restrictions a counselor may have difficulty placing an employee in a job or developing a plan.

The bottom line is, if an employee has permanent restrictions given by a doctor, then vocational rehabilitation can start faster and counselors have a much easier time in developing job placement or retraining programs.

No restrictions. No reasonable accommodations under the ADA? Under the Americans with Disabilities Act an employee can ask for a reasonable accommodation based on a disability. An employee with a medical note that they have no restrictions will find it difficult to impossible to find an employer who will try to reasonably accommodate them.

While in theory, employees have some ability to testify to the extent of their own disability under the ADA, that testimony usually carries less weight in an ADA case than it does in a Nebraska workers’ compensation case. But even if an employee can succeed in an ADA case, that means an employer has taken some adverse action against them. Usually, but not always, this means they were fired. This also usually means an employee waits a year at shortest for an outcome.

But an employee can short-circuit this hassle if they have reasonably accurate work restrictions from an MD.

Getting fired for false representation of your injury? I think doctors who give their patients inaccurate work releases without restrictions could in some circumstances be setting up their clients for being fired. Employers can ask about prior injuries post-hire if it is job-related. An employee who is mislead into believing they have “no restrictions” may believe they have no restrictions. A doctor who purposefully releases someone back to work with no restrictions may also be re-enforce the falsehood that no one will hire a worker with restrictions.

So what could happen? The employee is unable to tolerate the job and maybe asks for an accommodation. Then it comes out the person had a prior injury. Lying on an employment application is a good way for an employee to get fired.

Nebraska law also makes it harder for employees who misrepresent their physical condition during the hiring process to collect workers’ compensation benefits.

No, having “no restrictions” won’t ruin your workers compensation case.

Nebraska workers’ compensation law allows employees to testify to the extent of their disability or injury so long as the injury is found to be work-related. But evidence that a doctor believes an employee has “no restrictions” gives employers a plausible excuse to delay benefit payments.

Lawyers for injured workers can often times “fix” a “no restrictions” report with results from a Functional Capacity Evaluation or FCE. Fortunately many doctors will order these tests, but not every doctor does. But even if the tests are ordered, an employee or their attorney can get stuck with the cost of the examination.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , .

Counter-point: It’s about time unions had a “moment”

Posted on by

A good union can shut down a lot of standard tricks from insurers/claims administrators/self-insureds in workers’ compensation claims

My fellow workplace law blogger, Cleveland-based management-side attorney-blogger Jon Hyman, has been raising the alarm about resurgent unionization drives in the wake of union victories at Amazon and Starbucks. His message to employers is that unions, long thought dead, are making a comeback.

One Jon’s fear and nightmare is another Jon’s hope and dream. In my 17 years of experience of representing employees in workers’ compensation and employment law cases, I can say it’s about time unions had a moment.

This is particularly true if an employee gets hurt on the job. Here are the major advantages of working union versus working non-union when you get hurt at work.

Job Security

Most union contracts require that an employer proves just or good cause to fire an employee. In practice this means proving some willful misconduct weighed against an employee’s work history and other mitigating factors. If and when push comes to shove, an employee has a good chance of overturning a termination in an arbitration proceeding.

In contrast,  a non-union or at-will employee can be fired at any time. Sure most states, including Nebraska, have laws against workers’ compensation retaliation. But are those laws effective? A study by the Texas Department of Insurance questions the effectiveness of those laws. They reported 52 percent of injured workers were fired more than six months after being hurt on the job.

I’m not surprised as there are all sorts of pro-management tricks and traps in retaliation cases. For example, courts are reluctant to find protected activity, but even if they do they are raising the burden of proof for causation. There are also judge-made rules like the managers rule that disqualify certain employees from claiming retaliation and the good old-fashioned “honest belief” rule that often leads courts to discount false reasons for employment decisions.

Of course an employee also has the burden of proof in a civil case against their employer, so employees are a playing field tilted toward the employer. A lot of judicial precedent just pours grease on that uphill climb.

Job Security, Part 2: Extended leave and employee-friendly return to work programs.

Union contracts typically give employees protections above and beyond what is afforded to at-will or non-union employees.

One reason many injured workers lose their jobs is that their recovery takes longer than the mandated 12 weeks of protected leave under the Family Medical Leave Act. (This is particularly true if employers/insurers drag their feet on approving medical care) Further, even if an employer and employee go through a good faith interactive process to accommodate a medical condition as required by the Americans with Disabilities Act (and that’s a big if) the employee isn’t guaranteed a job.

Union contracts often address these concerns through extended leave provisions, negotiating return to work and light duty issues and giving employees seniority rights that allow them to bid into easier jobs. Unions can also build solidarity among co-workers which makes it easier for workers to informally accommodate disabilities among themselves rather than engaging in paper-heavy and adversarial process with human resources and/or occupational health.

Good union v. meh union when it comes to workers comp.

I just read over a union contract on workers’ compensation and return to work for a client. Like 1980s NBA action, it is fantastic. Not only do they negotiate return to work and light duty, they bargain for the employer to cooperate in the claim and to not interfere or retaliate for members who get hurt on the job. Further they place some limits on the company contacting their members. In other words, if a company engages in a lot of standard insurance company/claims administrator/self-insured shenanigans, the company could be looking at arbitration.

Some unions punt on workers’ compensation under the theory that since they don’t negotiate for workers’ compensation, they will leave it to the company. I don’t like that philosophy. But even in a union where the union takes a hands-off position towards workers’ compensation, the employee still has more job security and better benefits.

Good insurance benefits for denied workers’ compensation cases

Insurers and claims administrators like denying workers’ compensations cases on questionable circumstances. This is particularly true in states like Nebraska where employees can’t sue their workers’ compensation insurer for bad faith. If an employee doesn’t have health insurance, then they will often have a hard time getting the medical evidence they need to prove up their workers’ compensation case by going to the doctor.

But union employers tend to have good health insurance that allows employees to get the medical treatment they need for their health and for their disputed workers’ compensation cases.  Sometimes employees can also collect private disability. Sure health insurance and disability liens can create hassles in resolving a workers’ compensation case, but getting health care and income far outweighs any inconvenience caused by dealing with potential liens at the end of a case.

Do non-union employers have similar benefits. Sometimes yes, but why do they have these types of benefits? Often times its to offer benefits similar to unionized plants. I see this frequently in meat packing in Nebraska. I litigate frequently against beef processing plants owned by Tyson in Lexington, Nebraska, Cargill in Schuyler and JBS in Grand Island. JBS and Cargill are union, Tyson isn’t. But Tyson’s benefits and even some of their leave policies are similar to the unionized plants. Tyson has to keep up with JBS and Cargill.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , .

Sanitizing as light duty work for injured workers?

Posted on by

Last month in a trial, I heard an HR manager testify about something I’ve only read about on workers’ compensation insurance blogs, sanitizing or wiping down surfaces to prevent COVID-19 as part of a light or alternate duty assignment for injured worker.

While wiping down surfaces surely doesn’t spread COVID, most public health officials in the United States and abroad discount the importance of wiping down surfaces in preventing the spread of COVID. COVID is primarily spread through aerosol droplets from activities like breathing, talking, sneezing, etc.

So why are some employers pushing cleaning and sanitizing as light duty or alternate duty?

One, light duty assignments are always a good way for employers to reduce workers’ compensation costs. This explains the rise of so-called “voluntold light duty” jobs where employers volunteer injured workers for community service jobs. But unlike “voluntold light duty” employers receive financial benefits for placing employees in sanitizing jobs. In order to be eligible for PPP assistance, businesses need to maintain 75 percent of their payroll. Sanitizing jobs help businesses meet that requirement.

I think making workers do meaningless work is just an arbitrary exercise of power by employers. But sanitizing jobs pose unique risk. Cleaning chemicals can be hazardous to touch and inhale. I represented an employee who had to go the ER after using a restroom that was filled with chemical vapors from cleaning agents. Excessive chemicals could worsen air quality for workers who aren’t involved in sanitizing work. Having inexperienced workers using chemical may pose risks to themselves and others.

Supporters of light duty assignments argue that employees are better off working light duty because they maintain the employment relationship. That’s true to the extent that benefits like health insurance depend on earning wages. But reliance on employers for health insurance benefits just reinforces how employers can force employees to return to work after a work injury.

But there are other problems with light-duty jobs like “sanitizing” or retail “greeting”. They are temporary jobs reserved for workers are still recovering from injuries. In practice, this excludes many workers. Employers with light duty work programs tend to be high injury employers. High injury employers tend to be either self-insured or have high deductible insurance. As such, high injury employers want to press employees to reach maximum medical improvement or MMI as soon as possible. Hence the use of nurse case managers, occupational medicine clinics and paid examiners to push injured workers back to work whether they are ready or not.

But as soon as an employee is deemed to reach MMI, they are ineligible for light duty jobs like sanitizer or greeter. This leaves many workers in a kind of purgatory where they are still effectively unable to work  but technically employed without receiving wages or benefits.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , .

Did the Supreme Court undercut ADA protections for employees of religious hospitals?

Posted on by

Last week the Supreme Court decided that two teachers working at Catholic schools could not sue their employer for discrimination because of the “ministerial exception” to federal workplace discrimination laws.

The Supreme Court clarified (or broadened) what kind of religious school employees are excluded from anti-discrimination laws. The Supreme Court held that the First Amendment’s Religion clause precluded courts from second guessing the reasons for firing ministerial employees. The court held there was no formula for who was a ministerial employee. The court stated that depended on the extent an employee conveyed the message of the church and carried its mission.

Arguably, the Morrissey-Berru decision and the Hosanna-Tabor decision which it relied on only apply to religious school teachers. Before these decisions, lower courts held that most religious school teachers were covered under federal civil rights laws. (See the dissent from Justice Sotomayor starting at page 37 of the opinion.)

Who else will be excluded from civil rights laws?

So, if churches have broader latitude to discriminate against employees, how broad is that latitude. Would this apply to nurses and nurses aides at hospitals affiliated with a church? Nurses and nurse’s aides are often injured at work. Because of this fact, they often need to invoke the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and Family Medical Leave Act. (FMLA) Would a religious hospital argue the ministerial exception to argue the ADA and FMLA did not apply to a nurse or nurse’s aide hurt at work?

So far, at least in Nebraska and the Eighth Circuit I haven’t seen any cases where that happened. But Catholic Health Initiatives (CHI), a major health care employer locally, has some expressly religious statements in its mission statement. Would that language be enough to argue ministerial exception? Maybe not, but religious freedom advocates have advised employers about steps they can take to invoke the ministerial exception defense.

Another commonality between Morrisey-Berru and Hosanna-Tabor

I believe that major church-affiliated health care employers will continue to follow the ADA and FMLA. Major employers and their HR departments tend to be risk-averse. But in litigated cases, I believe outside counsel would push ministerial exception arguments.

Both the Hosanna-Tabor and Morrisey-Berru cases involved ADA claims. This fact fails to surprise me and I doubt that it’s entirely coincidental. From a practical perspective, ADA claims tend to be better cases for employees than other civil rights cases. I believe this is so because employers are more likely to botch ADA/FMLA compliance than other forms anti-discrimination laws. Arguing the ministerial exception is one way to defeat an otherwise valid ADA case.

A return to the pre-ADAAA bad old days?

But when I started practicing in 2005, ADA cases were harder to win. What changed was the ADA Amendments Act of 2008 which broadened the definition of disability. That change made ADA cases easier to prove.

Those changes to the ADA also made it easier for workers to heal from work injuries and return to work after injury. Pre-2008, if an injured worker was not ready to return to work after their 12 weeks of FMLA leave they would likely be fired. This threat often forced injured workers to attempt to return to work before they were ready. In tandem with “100 percent healed” policies, injured workers would also work with their doctors to downplay or eliminate work restrictions. An employee who returned to work with “no restrictions” before ready risked injury and also compromised the value of their workers’ compensation case.

But if courts extend Hosanna-Tabor and Morrisey-Berru to health care workers, the past is prologue for those workers. If courts extend these cases to hold the FMLA does not apply to health care workers, the future may be worse than the pre-ADAAA past.

Common law employment law claims?

Left unaddressed by the Supreme Court is whether religious employers can claim exemption from common law employment law claims. For example, Nebraska law makes it unlawful to retaliate against a worker claiming workers compensation. The Nebraska Workers Compensation Act covers churches and church employees. Arguably it would defeat the purpose of that law to allow churches or religious employers to retaliate against those employees.

On the flip side, Supreme Court cases about employment law tend to persuade state court judges. In her dissent in Morrissey-Berru, Justice Sotomayor criticized the ministerial exception as judge-made law. But the law prohibiting employers from retaliating against employees who claim workers’ compensation is also judge-made. That fact may make judges in Nebraska more willing to create a ministerial exception in common law anti-retaliation claims.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Who is going to hire me with restrictions?

Posted on by

Injured workers who are looking to return to work with work restrictions after an extended time of healing from an injury face some problems in returning to work. In many cases the injured worker has been off work well beyond any time covered by the Family Medical Leave Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and or any leave of absence policy, so they are unable to return to their old job assuming they could do their old job.

Workers in this situation often ask “Who is going to hire me with restrictions?” It’s a legitimate question. Here a few do’s and don’ts from my experience as a lawyer representing injured workers.

Do: Work with vocational rehabilitation

Nebraska offers vocational rehabilitation, VR for short, as part of our workers’ compensation act. Sometimes vocational rehabilitation can mean an injured worker gets paid their so-called temporary total disability rate while they go to school. More often this means a vocational counselor helps an injured worker look for work while they are receiving those benefits. VR is the Rodney Dangerfield of workers’ compensation benefits – it often gets no respect – but it can be very helpful for injured workers. It’s also not a benefit that an insurance company will often voluntarily offer to an injured worker like medical benefits or temporary disability pay.

Nebraska also offers vocational rehabilitation through our state department of education. That fact confuses a lot of my clients when I talk about VR through workers’ compensation. But if an injured worker has settled their workers’ compensation case or is fighting their workers’ compensation case, they can use VR through the state department of education to help return to work

Don’t: Assume no one will hire you

Disability discrimination is real. That’s why there is the Americans with Disabilities Act and parallel state laws. Under the ADA, it is illegal for an employer to discriminate against a qualified employee with a disability who can do a job with or without reasonable accommodations.

What that does that last sentence mean?. In plain terms, this means that so long as you meet most of the qualifications of the job, an employer or perspective employer should work with you to make minor tweaks to a job. Sometimes this means using a stool to avoid standing. Sometimes this means using a cart to avoid heavy carrying or lifting.

In practical terms, Nebraska employers claim there is a shortage of workers. I think business interests overstate this concern for political reasons, but as the job market has improved employers seems more willing to take chances on employees.

Don’t: Fail to disclose your restrictions or injury if asked by a new employer post-hire

In order for an employee to accommodate restrictions from an old injury, they need to know about the restrictions. While an employer can’t ask you about a disability pre-hire, they can ask about a disability post-hire so long if it is job related. The “Who is going to hire me with restrictions” line can get a worker into trouble if they don’t disclose they have some restrictions to certain body parts. Again, an employer needs to work with you to some extent on accommodating an old injury,

Failing to disclose an old injury can also make it more difficult to make a workers’ compensation claim if an injury with a new employer worsens an old injury. It can also be grounds to deny a workers’ compensation claim entirely. Failing to disclose an old injury can potentially be grounds for termination for dishonesty on employment application.

Don’t: Tell anyone who isn’t your lawyer or a family member that “No one is going to hire me with restrictions.”

Going back to the “Who’s going to hire me with restrictions?” It’s a legitimate question. But if an injured worker is still fighting a workers’ compensation claim, that statement said to the wrong person can hurt a claim.

Who is the wrong person? Anyone who isn’t a family member or your lawyer.

When a vocational rehabilitation counselor, doctor, insurance company lawyer, insurance adjuster or mediator hears “Who is going to hire me with restrictions?”  they tend to think. “This person doesn’t want to work” and or “This person isn’t hurt as bad as they think they are.”

Why do they think that way? If you work on the insurance-side of workers’ compensation for an extended length of time, I think you tend to perceive cases from that perspective. Lawyers and doctors and other professionals look at work differently. Many professionals tend to live to work rather than work to live. I believe that professional class people glamorize blue collar labor and tend to get nostalgic about blue collar or service jobs they did when they were younger. Professional class people also tend to consume media geared towards professional class people that tends to cover the workplace from the perspective of business.

But regardless of why professionals involved in workers’ compensation case think this way, those professionals have a lot of influence over the value of an injured workers’ compensation claim. Injured workers need to be careful about how they communicate with these professionals.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Nebraska, Workers Compensation and tagged , , , , .

Back In The game Or Back To Work Too Soon?

Posted on by

Senator Dan Quick has introduced employee-friendly legislation

Last weekend’s Big 10 Conference football championship game between Ohio State and Wisconsin contained some off-the-field controversy when former Wisconsin Badger and current Cleveland Browns player, Joe Thomas, criticized the fact that Ohio State starting quarterback J.T. Barrett was playing in the game six days after arthroscopic knee surgery.

While Barrett lead the Buckeyes to victory with 211 passing yards and 60 rushing yards, Thomas argued that college players should have the option of a second opinion when it comes to major surgeries like players do in the NFL. Thomas argued that team doctors are overly influenced by coaches who want players to return to action as soon as possible and that college players are over eager to return to the field.

A similar issue will be debated in Nebraska’s legislature next month. Senator Dan Quick of Grand Island has a bill on the floor that would require an employer to pay for a second opinion if an employee disputes a finding from a doctor paid for by the employer. Quick’s bill was inspired by his experience of being sent back to work prematurely by a doctor chosen by his employer’s workers compensation insurer.

Quick is an electrician by trade and is one of the few blue-collar workers who serves in the Nebraska Legislature. Another blue-collar worker, Lee Carter, was recently elected to the legislature in Virginia. Like Quick, Carter had a bad experience after a work injury. Carter had his hours reduced after his accident and was unable to find a lawyer because of confusion over which state had jurisdiction over his work injury.

Blue collar workers running for office may be a trend as iron worker Randy Bryce is running for Congress against House Speaker Paul Ryan and Wisconsin Firefighter’s union president Mahlon Mitchell is running for Governor of Wisconsin. I am encouraged that people like Dan Quick and Lee Carter have taken their bad experiences after work injuries and have gone into politics to directly address the problems they  faced first hand and make sure other workers will have better experiences if they get hurt on the job.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in employment law, Workers' Compensation and tagged , , , , , , , , .

Why Should I Return to Work?

Posted on by

Even if you don’t miss time from work, you might still have a workers’ comp case.

We appreciate all of our social-networking followers on Facebook and Twitter. This blog post is in response to questions posed by one of those followers.

Upon reading another blog post, we received commentary on Facebook saying: “…if you can work you dont [sic] have a case…you could still collect for time missed but you dont get to work and get paid for nothing…”

The answers to these questions vary depending on the situation, but hopefully these links provide more information about the benefits of filing a workers’ compensation claim and why returning to work does not mean you don’t have a case as implied by the comment above.

For example, even if your employer accommodated your work restrictions from your doctor or your employer paid your salary while you were off work, you still have a workers’ compensation claim and you are entitled to all of the rights that are provided under the workers’ compensation laws. Click here for more information.

In fact, it is possible to Continue reading

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in Workers' Compensation, Workplace Injury and tagged , , .