Workers’ Compensation

Workers Compensation

Work related injuries can be devastating. They can leave you with lost wages, medical bills, rehabilitation expenses, and often permanent disabilities or impairments. We believe all injured workers are entitled to the medical treatment you need to get you back to work again along with compensation for the time you are out of work. If you’re suffering from an on-the-job injury, we’re here to help you. We will walk you step by step through the legal process and work hard to get you everything we can to get you back on your feet again.

• Causally related medical treatment intended to treat your injuries and and that would tend to lessen your period of disability.
• Temporary weekly benefits to compensate you for your missed time at work and the resulting lost wages.
• A final determination of disability to compensate you for any permanent damage or disability your accident may have caused you.

If you have an accident on the job and have to miss work due to your injuries, it’s important to understand how you’ll be compensated for your lost time from work.  Although some companies might choose to continue paying an injured worker while they are out, this is most often not the case.  For most injured workers, any lost time they incur will be paid to them by the workers’ compensation insurance carrier provided you are either written completely out of work by a doctor or you have been written to restricted or light duties by a doctor and your employer has no restricted work available.  Be aware, if you are not written out by a doctor and choose on your own to miss time for an injury you risk losing your right to weekly benefits by the insurance carrier and possibly losing your job.  If you feel like you are unable to work due to an injury and do not have a doctor’s excuse, talk to your supervisors immediately and seek the advice of an attorney.  Being unable to work due to an injury and unable to collect weekly benefits is an extremely difficult situation to find yourself in.

If you are injured at work and miss seven days or more of time, the workers’ compensation carrier may be required to being paying you weekly benefits, often referred to as a running award or temporary total disability payments.  These benefits are calculated by taking your average weekly wage and multiplying it by 0.667 to arrive at a weekly compensation rate.  Your average weekly wage is normally calculated using the wages you earned during the four quarters prior to your accident but that method is not set in stone if circumstances warrant a different method.  If you are newer to your job, average weekly wage might be calculated from a number of methods such as averaging out the weekly pay you earned in the time you’ve been with the company, using a comparison to a like or similar employee, or any number of other methods used by the parties so long as it is deemed to be a fair and reasonable manner of doing so.  It is important to keep in mind that compensation rates in South Carolina have a maximum cap depending on what year your injury occurred.  Please see below to identify the state’s maximum compensation rate for the year that applies.

You may be entitled to receive weekly benefits from workers’ compensation for as long as you are unable to return to work up to 500 weeks either because you are completely incapacitated or because your employer is unable to accommodate your medical restrictions.  If you feel you are entitled to weekly benefits but either had them wrongfully cut off or denied, contact an attorney to discuss your rights under the law.