Can You Be Fired After Filing A Workers’ Compensation Claim?
Injuries happen everywhere, including at work. When you are injured while working, you can file a workers’ compensation claim to be reimbursed for medical bills and some lost income you may incur during the healing process.
However, what if your boss tries to fire you after filing a claim? If you want to protect yourself, learn more about when your employer may be able to fire you because of a workers’ compensation injury.
Retaliatory Termination
In most cases, your boss can only terminate you if you have poor work performance, such as not showing up to work, not working as hard as expected, being rude to customers, etc.
Sometimes, however, employers fire out of retaliation. This may happen after you’ve filed a complaint against your employer as a whistleblower, but some employers may be tempted to fire you just because you filed a workers’ compensation claim.
Luckily, federal laws protect you from being fired out of retaliation. If an employer fires an employee to retaliate, the employee can sue for wrongful termination — this is why your employer is not likely to admit it.
You’ll have to prove that your employer fired you because you filed the workers’ compensation claim with circumstantial evidence. One common example of circumstantial evidence is if the employer changed the reason for termination before or after you were terminated. This can be used to argue they don’t actually have a good valid reason to fire you because they keep changing the reason.
At-Will vs. Contracted Employees
Most employees at most businesses are at-will employees. At-will employees have the luxury of being able to quit their job whenever they see fit. While notice is customary, no legal agreement prevents you from quitting outright. At the same time, your employer has the right to fire you for any legal reason.
Contracted employees, on the other hand, do have a legal agreement stating how long the job lasts, what the job entails, and all the other rules regarding employment. With a contracted position, you can’t quit whenever you want unless your employer violates the contract in some way, making the contract void.
As an added benefit, your employer can’t fire you unless you violated the contract. Therefore, regardless of your status as an employee, your employer can’t fire you just because you filed a workers’ compensation claim.
Permanent Work Restrictions
Once you can return to work after an injury, you may need special accommodations in order to actually do your job. The employer is responsible for providing reasonable accommodations for employees after a work-related injury.
For example, if your injury caused you to need a wheelchair and your job is customer service over the phone, your employer can and should make simple accommodations for you, such as installing an elevator or new ramp.
Depending on your job and the extent of the injury, your employer may not be able to make accommodations for you. In the above example, you can easily continue to do your job in a wheelchair, but if you were a construction worker instead of customer service, your employer may not be able to reasonably accommodate you in the same position.
If they can’t accommodate you, they must try to give you a new position within the company that you can do with or without reasonable accommodations. If they cannot do this, your employer can terminate you, but this may qualify you for free vocational training via workers’ compensation, so you can learn how to do a new job.
Your employer can’t fire you just because you filed a workers’ compensation claim, but if you can’t do the job anymore or the accommodations you’ll need are too invasive, you may lose your job. If you would like to know more about workers’ compensation claims and how to successfully win yours, contact us at Walz Law Office today.