Is My Work Injury Covered under Workers’ Compensation?

On the surface, the definition of what constitutes a workers’ compensation injury or illness seems fairly straightforward. If you are injured on the job, then you are in line to receive workers’ compensation benefits, right? The answer is actually that it depends.

What are Workers’ Compensation Benefits?

• Provide a stream of income to a worker who has been injured on the job while he is unable to work and earn his regular salary or hourly wage, and
• Pay for costs related to medical care for the injury or illness.

For these reasons, then yes, if you receive a job-related injury or contract an illness as a result of your job, then you are eligible for workers’ compensation benefits. However, we need to be sure that we use the appropriate definition of what is considered a workplace injury or illness.

Work Injuries covered by Workers’ Compensation

For an injury or illness to be one that qualifies you to receive workers’ compensation benefits, the injury or illness must be directly caused by or related to one of your job responsibilities. Examples of injuries and illnesses that are the direct result of job responsibilities include the following:

• For an office worker, carpal tunnel syndrome caused by repetitive typing of e-mails, memos, or other work at a keyboard
• For an electrician, receiving electrical burns to his hands while installing a breaker box when he believed the power was shut off
• For a pizza delivery driver, hurting his back in a car accident while delivering food to a customer
• For a construction worker, contracting lung disease because he installed asbestos in buildings before the dangers of working with asbestos were known

Work Injuries not covered by Workers’ Compensation

An injury that is not the direct result of your job, which is either indirectly related to your job or just something that commonly occurs in everyday life, would not qualify you for workers’ compensation benefits. Examples of indirect injuries or illnesses that likely would not qualify for workers’ compensation include the following:

• Catching the flu from a coworker who came to work even though company policy asks that ill employees stay home
• Having a car accident while driving to or from work or while driving during lunch because you chose to go out to eat
• Falling down a flight of stairs at your office because your balance was impaired as the result of the consumption of alcohol

In addition, remember that you must report the injury to your employer in a timely manner. If you wait too long to report a workplace injury, then even if it is as the direct result of one of your job responsibilities, you may lose the opportunity to file a workers’ compensation claim.

Hiring a Workers’ Compensation Lawyer

If you would like to speak with an attorney about an injury or illness you have to determine if it is a valid workers’ compensation injury, please complete the short form found below. By completing this form, it will allow a workers’ compensation attorney to review the facts related to your injury or illness and provide you an initial consultation free of charge. This consultation is completely confidential from your employer and does not obligate you to anything further. Therefore, please use this opportunity today to get legal advice on your injury or illness so you do not lose out on the workers’ compensation benefits to which you may be entitled.

by Beth L.

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