Employers aren’t allowed to retaliate against you for claiming workers compensation. The law also prevents them from discriminating against you on the basis of your new disability. This does not mean you have air-tight protections against getting fired. Indeed, there are several mistakes you can make which will make it easy for your employer to terminate you. Mistake #1: Failing to Comply With Employer Policies For most workers compensation benefits the lack of compliance comes from a failure to follow bureaucratic process. Some employees assume that their employer “already knows” they’re being treated for injuries and that they cannot return to work yet. In truth, you’re required to check in and provide doctor’s notes just as you would be required to check in for regular sick days. If the doctor says you cannot work for three months you can bring that documentation to your employer and you should be safe.

There isn’t much time before Christmas, but there’s still a lot of holiday partying between now and then. There’s also the New Year. Both holidays, and other holidays celebrated at this time of year, can mean holiday party invitations start showing up in your inbox.  Thinking about how workers compensation might intersect with your party may not be the first thing on your mind. You’re probably thinking about what you want to wear, or whether you’ll have to buy any gifts. Still, it’s important to know what happens if you get injured, because in some cases your party attendance could be covered by workers compensation. There are a handful of instances in which parties could be compensatable.  The party happens every year. Parties that happen on an annual basis are considered to be “regular incidents of employment.” This would cover any party that you can expect to roll around like

Most of the time, New Jersey workers compensation law shields employers from personal injury lawsuits. The idea is the workers compensation insurance takes care of most of the same issues that a personal injury suit would.  Indeed, prior to the establishment of workers compensation law in the state, employees had no choice but to launch personal injury suits if they were injured on the job. Workers compensation was supposed to serve as a trade-off. It’s cheaper for employers to carry workers compensation insurance than it is for them to go to court every time an employee gets injured, and injured employees are more likely to receive compensation, if in lesser amounts than they would have received with a successful personal injury suit. But what if an employer is grossly negligent, to the point of engaging in heinous behaviour? What if that behavior then leads to the employee’s death or injury?

Recent news tells us the State of New Jersey is charging Uber $242 million in back taxes and has ruled that they have misclassified their contractors as employees. Once again, the question of who is or isn’t an employee is on the minds of many workers’ compensation attorneys, as well as many who have been classified as independent contractors in the past.  This gives us a timely opportunity to explore other people who perform labor outside of the traditional confines of a regular full or part-time job with benefits.  At first blush it might seem obvious that volunteers should receive protections for their unpaid labor on behalf of the community. Many volunteers certainly do not stop to wonder whether they’re covered by workers compensation. Human nature ensures most of us don’t think about the worst until it happens. It also ensures a sense of trust, a vague idea that if

The Portable Benefits Act is a proposed piece of legislation which would make it less profitable for companies to misclassify employees. Employers who use 50 or more contractors in twelve consecutive months must contribute funds to a Qualified Benefit Provider. This would be the lesser of $0.25 for every dollar of consumer sales, or $6 per hour worked by each worker, prorated by minute. Thus, it may be cheaper to go ahead and hire whoever they want to use full time. Or, depending on the number of independent contractors used, it may be less expensive to classify them correctly than it would be to inflate the numbers.  Portable benefits could also open up new protections for the over 127,000 temporary workers in New Jersey. Temp workers are already entitled to worker’s compensation under New Jersey law—the temporary agency is supposed to take care of it. That doesn’t mean they always

When you’re in the middle of a worker’s compensation case it’s vital to know how to navigate your  medical care. Certain missteps can cause you to take on medical bills worker’s compensation insurance would have paid. In a New Jersey worker’s compensation case, your employer and your insurance company can dictate your medical care, including which doctor you see. If you wanted to use your own doctor, or a doctor from a different insurance network, then you’d have to seek prior authorization from the insurance company. Failing to do so can make you responsible for those bills. The only exception is the ER doctor you receive when you take the initial injury. That doctor can be from any network or hospital and worker’s compensation would still generally be required to pick up that bill. Thus, you should not see your own doctor for any procedures or tests related to your

If you read “Does Fault Matter in a NJ Worker’s Comp Case,” then you know worker’s compensation generally will not be awarded in cases where an employee gets injured by violating company policy. This usually includes workplace altercations. However, there are always some exceptions. One exception came up in a case that was decided by the court of appeals earlier this year: Arvind Bhut vs. Aluminum Shapes.  The case was an unusual one. Two employees got into a tense confrontation where, according to the courts, each felt the need to defend themselves from the other. In the course of the conflict, Arvin Bhut injured his shoulder. The court ruled as follows: “The judge of compensation found as fact that neither petitioner nor Stevens intended to hurt the other when they encountered each other outside of the locker room. Stevens’s and petitioner’s actions were merely self-protective. Petitioner swung his arm toward