Are You Entitled to Work Disability from Your On-The-Job Injury
In a case handled by Garrow Law, the claimant is to receive a work disability award because he has not returned to his regular “at-injury” job. The claimant did not receive work disability because the employer’s job analysis did not not accurately describe all the duties of his job at injury. Affidavits from the claimant and a coworker showed that he did work activities that were heavier than in the job description. He did the heavier duties on a steady, customary basis. After his shoulder injury, he was restricted to lifting no more than 50 pounds from the floor to waist, no more than 10 pounds for above waist lifting, and he was to do no repetitive lifting.
The insurer first closed the claim with no award for work disability. The closure was set aside because there was not enough information to close the claim. There was no job analysis or description of the physical requirements of claimant’s “at-injury” regular work that the claimant had agreed to and that had been approved by the attending physician. At the insurer’s request, a vocational consultant had prepared a job analysis, which described the job as having minimal lifting duties with limited “field” work. The claimant disagreed with the analysis since it did not include his “at-injury” job duties of removing/installing heavy windows. The consultant would not include these “carpentry” duties in the analysis, says that if the claimant did this, it was not part of his job description and he was doing this on his own. The insurer again closed the claim but again did not award work disability.
Based on affidavits from the claimant and a coworker that showed that the “at-injury” job required carpentry duties occasionally involving lifting/carrying windows in excess of 50 pounds. Claimant was then awarded work disability because he had not returned to his regular work, and he was to receive a penalty. The Board also said that the claimant was entitled to a penalty because the insurer had known about the disagreement about the claimant’s duties when it closed the claim.
If you have questions about your Oregon Workers’ Compensation claim, please contact the law office of Philip H. Garrow