Category Archives: FMLA

How is workers’ compensation different for top draft picks?

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New Orleans Pelicans forward, Zion Williamson (The Athletic)

It’s hard to imagine an injured highly paid professional athlete as a workers’ compensation claimant. Their wealth shields them for many of the difficulties an injured worker can experience. But their experience as injured workers gives the public insight into the some of the challenges faced by injured workers.

New Orleans Pelicans forward and NBA top draft pick, Zion Wiliamson, injured his right knee in the preseason.  Here are few takeaways on the injury and its media coverage from the perspective of a workers’ compensation lawyer.

New employees are more likely to get hurt – Studies show that new employees are more likely to get hurt on the job. In this respect Zion Williamson is similar to many other new employees.  Injuries to new employees pose all sorts of issues for injured workers. How do you calculate workers’ compensation benefits? What if you have to miss time from work? Williamson likely doesn’t have those problems for a few reasons.

Average weekly wage A major issue for new employees is how to calculate the amount of their workers’ compensation benefits. Even if Williamson wasn’t making millions of dollars, this wouldn’t be a problem for him because he has an actual employment contract that states how much he is to be paid. 

Leave for the injured new employeeA typical employee at-will employee isn’t required to be granted leave until they have been employed for one year.  That assumes the employee is covered by the Family Medical Leave Act. But Williamson is covered by a contract with the Pelicans. He is also covered by a collective bargaining agreement through the NBA Players Association. So unlike the typical new at-will employee hurt on the job, Williamson likely has the time to recover from his work injury without having to worry about losing his job.

Pre-existing injuries and uncertainties over reporting – Williamson injured his right knee playing for Duke in February 2019. At least according to press reports, there is some question about the right knee injury occurred. Nonetheless, I would assume the Pelicans will pick up Williamson’s medical care through workers’ compensation.

But if you aren’t an elite-level NBA power forward and you tell your employer you aren’t sure how you hurt your knee, but you know you hurt it eight months ago, don’t be surprised if workers’ compensation doesn’t cover that injury.

On the off chance the Pelicans deny Williamson’s workers’ compensation, claim based on causation and/or the definition of accident, Williamson probably would have the money to cover his medical treatment. Most other injured workers lack that ability.

As an aside, if it was determined that Williamson’s knee injury was caused by his play at Duke, those injuries would not be covered by workers’ compensation. Eventhough the NCAA recently allowed student-athletes to make money through endorsements, they aren’t employees who are entitled to workers’ compensation.

General ignorance of workers’ compensation – I like basketball but I don’t follow it closely. I didn’t find out about Williamson’s injury until I saw an article in The Onion entitled “Pelicans HR Informs Zion Williamson Knee Surgery Not Covered Until 90 Days Into First Season.

Employers are required to carry workers’ compensation and employees are covered by workers’ compensation on their first day of work. The Onion is satire but it’s fairly typical of the misunderstanding of workers’ compensation by the media and entertainment industry. California’s Assembly Bill 5 is often described as a bill that provides sick leave and health insurance to gig economy workers. Sick leave and health insurance often aren’t required benefits, but workers’ compensation is a mandatory benefit. AB5 expands workers’ compensation to gig economy workers.

Wall Street Journal columnist Andy Kessler was griping about AB5 in a recent column. Kessler didn’t mention workers’ compensation in his column. Any pundit opining about AB5 who doesn’t understand the fundamentals of employee benefits, should be discounted or ignored.

 

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

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What happens when an employee needs family leave after a work injury?

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Taking leave to care for a family member can be complicated by a work injury

Work injuries create all sorts of unexpected complications for injured worker. One complication is what happens when an injured employee on alternate or light duty needs to take time away from work for a family emergency.

If the employee has been employed with the same employer for a year, worked more than 1250 hours during that year and the employer has more than 50 employees within a 75 mile radius, then the employee could take leave for up to 12 weeks under the Family Medical Leave Act without worrying about losing their job.

If the employee or employer is not covered by the Family Medical Leave Act, then things can get sticky for an injured worker as the employer is not obligated to provide unpaid family leave. In Nebraska, an employer is still obligated to pay temporary disability regardless of whether an employee is fired or quit.  But employers, especially ones that are self-insured for workers’ compensation, ignore the law which means that an employee has to wait for a hearing to get temporary disability benefits paid. There may also be a question as to whether an employer’s ability to accommodate a work injury but for a termination or quit should factor into how much an employee should get paid for temporary disability.

Although I haven’t encountered this issue, I suspect an FMLA eligibile employee who took family leave while on light duty could have an employer deny payment of temporary disability. Ultimately I believe a court would award temporary disability in that circumstance. In other words, the analysis for the purpsoses of workers’ compensation benefits would be the same even if the new employee has less job protections for taking family leave.

Short-term employees are already more vulnerable to injuries. Short-term employees also targeted for termination under policies that fire new employees for having “lost time” or “recordable” accidents. While you can, and I have, argued successfully those types of policies retaliate against new workers who get hurt at work, you can’t make the same argument about new employees who get fired for taking family leave. The law excludes new employees from the protections of the Family Medical Leave Act. The law allows employees to discriminate against new employees who need family leave. That’s not to say than a new employee who gets fired after taking leave can’t even have a wrongful termination case, but there would have to evidence of some unlawful motives for an employee to bring that case.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in FMLA, temporary disability, Workers Compensation and tagged , , , , .

How Employers Can Abuse FMLA

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Our colleague, Tom Domer in Milwaukee, recently criticized the media for their misleading coverage of “FMLA abuse” among public employees in Milwaukee. This criticism parallels our criticism about misleading coverage of an unemployment decision in Iowa. Domer pointed out correctly that FMLA leave is unpaid. The fact that FMLA leave is unpaid leave makes it possible for employers to abuse FMLA.

I represented a client with a personal health condition that temporarily prevented that person from doing heavy lifting. My client told human resources about this health condition, and that person was forced to take unpaid FMLA leave. Of course, under the Americans with Disabilities Act, there is an obligation to engage in an interactive process to determine what reasonable accommodations could be made so the disabled employee can perform the essential functions of the job. In the case of my client, there was evidence that that person’s employer did not engage in that process. Though my client’s case ultimately resolved, I doubt that my client is the only person who has had a similar experience with forced FMLA.

I suspect some employers use unpaid FMLA leave as a way to reduce payroll expenses even if an employee could perform the essential functions of their job with a few simple accommodations. So the next time you hear about employees abusing FMLA, remember that employers can abuse unpaid leave as well.

The offices of Rehm, Bennett, Moore & Rehm, which also sponsors the Trucker Lawyers website, are located in Lincoln and Omaha, Nebraska. Five attorneys represent plaintiffs in workers’ compensation, personal injury, employment and Social Security disability claims. The firm’s lawyers have combined experience of more than 95 years of practice representing injured workers and truck drivers in Nebraska, Iowa and other states with Nebraska and Iowa jurisdiction. The lawyers regularly represent hurt truck drivers and often sue Crete Carrier Corporation, K&B Trucking, Werner Enterprises, UPS, and FedEx. Lawyers in the firm hold licenses in Nebraska and Iowa and are active in groups such as the College of Workers’ Compensation Lawyers, Workers' Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG), American Association for Justice (AAJ), the Nebraska Association of Trial Attorneys (NATA), and the American Board of Trial Advocates (ABOTA). We have the knowledge, experience and toughness to win rightful compensation for people who have been injured or mistreated.

This entry was posted in FMLA, unpaid leave, worker rights and tagged , , .