Practice Areas

• Workers' Compensation
• Personal Injury
• Social Security Disability

Firm News

• When the injured worker returned to work he was immediately fired...
  
• Workers' Compensation: The IC ruled that the employer, who willingly paid the medical claim and workers comp for the employee's foot injury, must also pay for pain management because this injury aggravated the employee's pre-existing fibromyalgia and hypertension and was now considered a chronic condition. Although it is tough to win these claims we can usually do it if we the treating physician will agree that the pre-existing condition is worse now than it was and that this change is due to the worker's comp accident....
  
• Workers' Compensation: The Industrial Commission denied the employee's claim for temporary partial disability compensation. The Commission ruled that the reduction in wages that our client received was because of problems with the company's workload due to the economy. It was determined that he didn't receive less pay because of his injury or from the less-paying job within the company that he had to take because of the injury....
  
• Workers' Compensation: The NC Industrial Commission determined that the employer was required to pay our client's medical bills and also continue workers' compensation payments until our client could find a job with his limited physical capabilities. The employer was unable to find work for him at the company and he was fired, which was unacceptable, although it was explained by the employer as happening because of excessive absences....
  
• Workers' Compensation: The North Carolina Industrial Commission threatened to hold CNA in contempt of court because they refused to authorize the medical tests which would prove that the plaintiff was unable to do his job. This was a classic example of an adjuster getting an opinion from a reliable doctor and then refusing any other evaluation which could help the injured worker....
  
• Workers Compensation: The North Carolina Industrial Commission held that National Benefits Association had wrongfully denied this claim for more than a year...but only when the Industrial Commission finally heard all the evidence -- that the employer admitted that they knew the plaintiff was hurt, that they had sent him to a doctor but didn't follow his direction, and that there was no way our client could do his job with his severely-injured back....
  
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission says Liberty Mutual must provide yardcare and housecleaning to an injured brickmason....
  
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission rules that a restaurant dishwasher who slipped and fell, and was taken straight to an emergency room has proven that he was injured on the job....
  
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission finds that Diebold and Broadspire MUST pay weekly benefits even after they fired the injured worker from her "light duty" job....
  
• Workers' Compensation: North Carolina Industrial Commission rules against The Hartford Insurance Company and holds that a nurse who was still on her employer's property when she was hit by a car is within the course and scope of her employment and entitled to workers' compensation benefits....
  

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Library

Workers' Compensation

• Psssst! Who's that following you?
• NCIC Form 25T: Mileage Reimbursement form
• Form 28T: Notice of Termination of Compensation by Reason of Trial Return to Work
• Form 33R: Response to Request that Claim Be Assigned for Hearing
• 10 Things Your Insurance Adjuster Won't Tell You (download)

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Information for injured workers in North Carolina

Q: What is a workers' compensation trial like?

A: They aren't as exciting as you might hope for.

The trial is called a hearing. It may be in a court room but is often in a meeting room at a community college or libarary. The judge is called a deputy commissioner and he or she will be wearing a suit rather than a black robe. The hearing is technically open to the public although it is pretty rare for anyone to be watching one.

At the beginning of the hearing the deputy commissioner will review a Pre-Trial Agreement where the lawyers have agreed to certain facts not in dispute, agreed on what the issues to be decided by the deputy commissioner will be, and agreed on what may come into evidence. The deputy commissioner will then ask whichever side requested the hearing to proceed.

Whichever side is going first will call witnesses who will be sworn in on a Bible (you may affirm to tell the truth if you prefer). Whoever calls the witness asks questions first in what is called a direct examination. Then the other attorney has a cross-examination. There may be brief follow-up questions as a redirect and recross but this is pretty limited. After the first side is done with witnesses they "rest their case."

The defending side may then put on evidence in a similar manner.

At the end of the hearing the deputy commissioner will usually give the lawyers 60 days to go to your doctors' offices and take testimony, known as depositions, from the doctors. The lawyers then have 30 days to submit written arguments, known as contentions or proposed opinion and awards, to the deputy commissioner. The deputy commissioner will take two to four months to issue a decision called an opinion and award.

The losing party has 15 days to appeal the case to the Full Commission. If that happens the entire question and answering from the hearing is reduced to a written transcript. Once the transcript is prepared the attorneys prepare written arguments as to why the deputy commissioner got it right or wrong. The lawyers then appear before a panel of three commissioners in Raleigh and give a 20-minute presentation about your side of the case. The Full Commission then issues its own opinion and award in another two to four months.

The losing party can theoretically take the case to the North Carolina Court of Appeals, however this is not often done. The Court of Appeals will not review findings of fact -- that is to say if the Full Commission decides that you have green hair, even if there is some evidence that you may have blue hair, the Court of Appeals will not second guess what the Full Commission has found as fact. The Court of Appeals is limited to assessing whether or no the Full Commission properly applied North Carolina law to those facts.