Not all workplace injuries result in employees being completely unable to work for the entire duration of their recovery period. If your injuries heal to the point that you can work in a lessened capacity, your employer may request that you return to work on light duty. But what is light-duty work, and how could it affect your workers’ compensation benefits?
If your employer wants you to return to light-duty work, contact Calhoon & Kaminsky, P.C., for a free case evaluation with an experienced workers’ comp lawyer. We’ll explain how returning to work in a limited capacity could impact your benefits and what your rights are when it comes to refusing a request to return to work.
What Is Light-Duty Work?
If a workplace injury leaves you temporarily partially disabled, you may still be able to work with certain restrictions in place. For example, your treating physician may say that you cannot lift heavy objects while you’re recovering, but you can still perform other work-related tasks. Light-duty work is any role you can perform that falls within your work restrictions and is less strenuous than your pre-injury position.
Pennsylvania’s workers’ compensation system relies on light-duty work to get injured employees back into the workforce, even if their injuries prevent them from performing all the duties of their old jobs.
Some Examples of Light-Duty Work
Light-duty work can take a few forms, depending on the extent of your work restrictions and your pre-injury position. As part of your light-duty work, your employer may ask you to:
- Perform a similar role to your pre-injury job but with some restrictions, such as on how much you can lift or how long you can stand
- Perform a job with reduced hours, such as only working part-time while you finish recovering from your injuries
- Perform an entirely different job because your work restrictions make it impossible for you to do your pre-injury job
Examples of entirely different jobs you may be asked to perform while recovering include completing paperwork, leading training sessions, performing inspections, and reviewing security footage.
How Will Light-Duty Work Impact Workers’ Compensation?
Under Section 306(b) of the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Act, workers engaging in light-duty work can receive wage loss benefits equal to 66 ⅔ of the difference between their pre- and post-injury average weekly wages (AWW). For example, if your pre-injury AWW was $1,200 and your post-injury AWW is $600, you could receive up to $400 in weekly benefits.
However, your benefits cannot exceed the maximum compensation based on the year’s statewide AWW. And if your post-injury AWW meets or exceeds your pre-injury AWW, you will not be eligible to recover any wage loss benefits through workers’ compensation.
Performing light-duty work will not impact your medical coverage benefits. It only impacts your wage loss benefits.
Can You Refuse Your Employer’s Light-Duty Work Offer?
Technically, you can refuse your employer’s offer to provide you with light-duty work that adheres to the work restrictions imposed by your treating physician. However, refusing a light-duty position will likely result in the insurance company suspending your wage loss benefits. If there is work available that you can perform, you are expected to perform it.
However, some employers and insurance companies attempt to use this rule against injured workers to force them back to work early or unfairly suspend their wage loss benefits.
For example, the doctor who conducts your independent medical examination (IME) to determine whether you can return to work isn’t an independent doctor. They work for your employer and have your employer’s interests in mind, not yours. They are incentivized to say that you can return to work even if you feel you cannot.
Another example is when an employer offers light-duty work that they know you don’t want or can’t perform for some reason. They may do this to get you to quit or as punishment for filing your workers’ comp claim, which could be illegal retaliation.
If you believe you cannot perform the light-duty work offered by your employer, you should speak to a workers’ compensation lawyer.
Can You Contest What Is Considered Light-Duty Work By the Employer?
The light-duty work offered by your employer must adhere to any work restrictions placed on you by your treating doctor. They cannot call any job “light duty” and then punish you for not accepting it.
If you believe the position offered by your employer doesn’t count as light duty, you can contest it with the help of your doctor and a workers’ compensation lawyer. Your doctor can clarify what kinds of jobs your injuries allow you to perform, and a lawyer can help you push back against the insurance company’s attempts to terminate your benefits for not accepting the proposed position.
Can You Appeal When Your Benefits End?
Under Section 306(b) of the Workers’ Compensation Act, the maximum amount of time an injured worker can receive wage loss benefits while on light duty is 500 weeks. However, any total disability benefits received before engaging in light-duty work may not count toward this limit.
Before this 500-week period expires, the insurance company can seek to terminate your benefits if it believes you can return to work at full capacity, in line with the findings of an IME. You may receive a notice of termination regarding your benefits, which you can challenge with the Workers’ Compensation Office of Adjudication (WCOA).
For a successful challenge, you will need to present evidence demonstrating why you are still unable to return to work at full capacity and that you deserve workers’ compensation light-duty benefits. You can do this by presenting medical evidence showing the impact of your injuries on your ability to work, testimony from your treating doctor about your work restrictions, and other evidence about the suitability of any offered jobs.
If the WCOA judge got the law or the facts wrong, you can file an appeal with the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board within 20 days of the judge’s decision.
Contact a Hershey Workers’ Comp Attorney Now
If you are receiving workers’ compensation benefits and your employer wants you to return to light-duty work, contact Calhoon & Kaminsky, P.C., for a free case evaluation. Our Hershey workers’ compensation lawyers will review the details of your workers’ comp claim, explain how light-duty work could impact your benefits, and help you push back against your employer’s unreasonable work requests.
