H. Stanley Harris, P.C.
130-A North McDowell Street
Charlotte, NC 28204-2268
Phone: 704-334-5600
Fax: 704-334-1654
WORKERS’ COMPENSATION CASES IN NORTH CAROLINA
To maintain a workers’ compensation case in North Carolina, one must meet certain criteria for a claim to be compensable. First, one must be injured by an accident while on the job during the course and scope of that person’s job duties. Additionally, one must work for an employer who has three or more employees at the time that the injured person suffers said injury. If all of the prerequisites are met, an injured person can maintain a lawful workers’ compensation injury claim with the employer or its workers’ compensation insurance carrier.
The first criteria is that a person must be “injured” before a claim can be maintained. An injury does not usually include a medical condition that simply arises while a person is at work. An injury is something that actually happens to a person rather than merely afflicting a person for no apparent reason.
Second, the injury must come from an “accident” that is outside the normal, customary, and everyday happenings or occurrences while one is on the job doing his or her job duties. It is not usually sufficient to maintain that an injury occurred by accident unless something that deviates from the normal course of that person’s job duties occurs to injure that worker.
The injury by accident must occur during a worker’s time on his job rather than the time either before or after work when the worker is traveling to or traveling from his or her place of employment. The injury by accident while on the job must occur while the employee is performing some duty, action, or requirement of that worker’s job. As long as the worker is on the job in the furtherance of his or her employer’s business, the employee is covered under the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act.
Assuming the worker is injured by accident while on the job in the course and scope of his or her job duties, that worker is entitled to the benefits set out in the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act. That set of statutes provides that the employer must pay for the medical treatment of the worker who is injured by accident, and must also pay that worker’s wages if the worker is out of work for at least seven days after his or her injury occurred. If the worker is out of work pursuant to a doctor’s direction for at least three weeks subsequent to the injury by accident, the employer or its workers’ compensation carrier must pay the injured worker for all of the time that he or she has missed from work at that employee’s workers’ compensation wage. Under the Workers’ Compensation Act, a worker is paid a workers’ compensation wage of 66? percent of his or her average weekly wages based on the fifty-two weeks immediately proceeding the injury by accident.
A worker is obligated to officially notify his or her employer of such injury by accident within two years of the date of injury. However, the most common and best practice in this situation is to file a Form 18 with the North Carolina Industrial Commission, the employer, and its workers’ compensation carrier to promptly and properly notify the requisite parties of an injured worker’s claim for benefits. Once the employer is notified of the injury, the employer has the right to direct the employee’s medical treatment, but if the employer does not do so, an injured worker can seek his or her own treatment while petitioning the North Carolina Industrial Commission to approve that treatment to be paid by the employer.
The injured worker may have rights to additional medical and income benefits in the future if his or her injury results in a permanent partial impairment or a permanent total impairment to his or her body. Thus, it is imperative that the injured worker contact a workers’ compensation attorney to assist that injured worker in the procurement of any and all rights and benefits to which that injured worker may be entitled pursuant to the North Carolina Workers’ Compensation Act.
There are a number of intricacies, pitfalls, and requirements which an injured worker may need to circumnavigate in the filing and maintaining of a workers’ compensation claim with his or her employer. thus, a consultation with a workers’ compensation lawyer would be extremely beneficial to an injured worker at the early stages of his or her claim process in order to properly pursue such a workers’ compensation claim with his or her employer or the workers’ compensation carrier hired by the employer.