The Impact of Light-Duty Assignments on Workers’ Compensation Benefits
After a workplace injury, many employees are eager to return to work in some capacity, both for financial stability and a sense of normalcy. Employers often offer light-duty or modified-duty assignments as a way to bring injured workers back before they have fully recovered. While light-duty work can be beneficial in the right circumstances, it can also have a significant impact on workers’ compensation benefits, particularly wage replacement. Understanding how these assignments affect your rights is critical before deciding whether to accept them.
If you are facing a light-duty job offer after an injury, speaking with an experienced Indianapolis workers’ compensation lawyer early in the process can help you avoid mistakes that could reduce or jeopardize your benefits.
What Is a Light-Duty Assignment?
Light-duty work typically involves modified job responsibilities that accommodate an injured worker’s medical restrictions. These assignments may reduce physical demands, adjust work hours, or eliminate tasks that could aggravate an injury. In Indiana workers’ compensation cases, light-duty positions are often offered once a treating physician determines that the employee can return to work with restrictions.
Light-duty assignments are intended to support recovery while allowing employees to earn income. However, not all light-duty offers are appropriate or compliant with medical restrictions, and accepting the wrong position can create complications.
How Light-Duty Work Affects Wage Replacement Benefits
One of the most immediate impacts of light-duty work is on temporary total disability benefits. When an injured worker is completely unable to work, workers’ compensation typically provides wage replacement benefits equal to a portion of the worker’s average weekly wage. Once light-duty work is accepted, those benefits may change.
If the light-duty position pays less than your pre-injury job, you may still be entitled to temporary partial disability benefits. These benefits are designed to make up a portion of the difference between your pre-injury wages and your reduced earnings. However, if the light-duty position pays the same or more than your previous wage, wage replacement benefits may stop altogether.
Understanding how wages are calculated and whether your light-duty pay accurately reflects your earning capacity is essential to ensuring you receive the benefits you are entitled to.
Can You Refuse Light-Duty Work?
A common question injured workers ask is whether they can refuse a light-duty assignment. The answer depends largely on whether the job aligns with your doctor’s restrictions. If a light-duty position exceeds your medical limitations or places you at risk of further injury, refusing it may be justified.
However, refusing suitable light-duty work without a valid medical reason can jeopardize your workers’ compensation benefits. Insurers may argue that you are capable of working and voluntarily choosing not to, which can result in benefit suspension or termination.
Clear communication between you, your physician, and your employer is critical. Any concerns about a light-duty assignment should be documented and supported by medical evidence.
The Risk of Returning to Work Too Soon
Returning to work before you are medically ready can have serious consequences. Performing tasks outside your restrictions can worsen your injury, prolong recovery, and complicate your workers’ compensation claim. In some cases, employers may unintentionally pressure workers into accepting light-duty roles that appear safe but still exceed medical limitations.
Injured workers should never rely solely on an employer’s description of a light-duty job. Medical clearance and written restrictions from your treating physician should guide any return-to-work decision.
How Light-Duty Work Can Affect Permanent Disability Claims
Light-duty assignments can also influence how permanent impairment is evaluated. Insurance companies may argue that the successful performance of light-duty work demonstrates a higher level of functional ability than claimed. This can impact permanent partial disability ratings and future compensation.
This does not mean injured workers should avoid light-duty work altogether. Instead, it highlights the importance of ensuring that work activity accurately reflects medical limitations and does not misrepresent the severity of the injury.
Common Mistakes Injured Workers Make
Many injured workers mistakenly believe that accepting light-duty work automatically ends their workers’ compensation claim. In reality, medical benefits often continue even when wage replacement benefits change. Another common mistake is failing to report pain or difficulty performing light-duty tasks to a doctor, resulting in medical records that do not reflect ongoing limitations.
Some workers also assume that any job offered must be accepted. In truth, only medically appropriate work should be considered suitable.
Why Legal Guidance Matters
Navigating light-duty assignments requires a careful balance between compliance and self-protection. An attorney experienced in Indiana workers’ compensation law can review light-duty offers, evaluate wage calculations, and help ensure that your rights are protected throughout the return-to-work process.
Legal guidance is especially important when disputes arise over job suitability, benefit reductions, or allegations of refusal to work.
Contact Lee Cossell & Feagley
If you have been injured at work and are facing a light-duty assignment, you do not have to navigate the process alone. At Lee Cossell & Feagley, LLP, we help injured workers throughout Indianapolis and Indiana understand how light-duty work affects their workers’ compensation benefits and long-term recovery.
Our experienced attorneys are committed to protecting your health, your income, and your rights. Contact Lee Cossell & Feagley today to discuss your workers’ compensation claim and ensure that any return to work supports, not undermines, your recovery.