Fort Wayne workers’ comp lawyer guide: work injuries and Indiana claims

Personal Injury Attorney Fort Wayne is a free attorney referral service, not a law firm. It can connect you with a participating independent attorney’s office, and the A to Z directory of Fort Wayne injury law firms shows which firms name workers’ compensation among their practice areas. The Worker’s Compensation Board of Indiana itself says it cannot give legal advice, and neither can this site.

What workers’ compensation is

The Board describes it this way: worker’s compensation is an accident insurance program paid by your employer, which may provide medical, rehabilitation and income benefits if you are injured on the job. It can also provide benefits to dependents if a worker dies from a job injury. According to the Board, coverage starts from the first day you are on the job, and the law requires most businesses to carry it.

Under Indiana Code 22-3-5-1, a covered employer must either insure with an authorized insurer or prove to the Board that it can pay compensation directly, which is called self-insuring. Either way, providing the coverage is the employer’s job.

The program is run by the Worker’s Compensation Board of Indiana. By statute it has seven members appointed by the governor, one of them the chairman, and all of them attorneys admitted in Indiana.

Report the injury to your employer, in writing

The single most useful thing to do after a work injury is to tell your employer right away, and in writing if you can. The Board’s advice is to report any accident to your employer, meaning your boss, foreman or supervisor, immediately, and it warns that if you wait more than 30 days, your claim may be denied.

The law behind that, Indiana Code 22-3-3-1, says the injured worker must give written notice as soon as practicable unless the employer already knows. If notice is not given within 30 days, no compensation is paid until it is, and a late notice can bar compensation to the extent the employer shows it was harmed by the delay.

• Write down the date, time, place and how it happened, and who saw it.
• Keep a copy of what you give your employer, with the date you gave it.
• Note the names of everyone you told, and when.

Your employer has duties too. Within 7 days after learning of an injury that causes death or needs medical care beyond first aid, the employer must send a written report to its insurance carrier, or to the Board if it self-insures, and the carrier must pass it to the Board. The Board’s employee page has a tool to confirm that a First Report of Injury was filed.

Medical care: the employer directs it

In the Board’s words, in Indiana the employer directs medical care. The employer must provide an attending physician and the services and products that the physician or the Board considers necessary, free of charge to the employee. Emergency care is protected: an employer or carrier may not delay emergency medical care that the attending facility’s physician considers necessary.

If you are not sure which doctor to see for follow-up care, ask your employer or its carrier in writing, and keep the answer.

Income benefits while you are off work

For temporary disability, Indiana generally starts compensation with the eighth day of disability. The first seven days are paid only if the disability lasts more than 21 days. The first weekly payment is due 14 days after the disability begins.

For temporary total disability, weekly compensation is generally 66 2/3 percent of the average weekly wage, up to a maximum set by law, for no more than 500 weeks, under Indiana Code 22-3-3-8. The maximum changes over time, so ask the carrier or a lawyer for the figure that applies. The Board also says workers’ compensation is not taxable.

If the carrier tells you it intends to stop temporary total disability payments and you disagree, the Board says you must give written notice of disagreement to the Board and the employer within seven days of receiving that notice, using the state form mailed by the carrier or the online version. The Board may then schedule an independent medical examination.

The two-year deadline to file with the Board

Under Indiana Code 22-3-3-3, the right to compensation is forever barred unless a claim is filed with the Worker’s Compensation Board within two years after the accident, or two years after a death that results from it. If temporary disability benefits were paid, the two years generally run from the last date for which those benefits were paid.

The Board adds a practical tip: if the deadline is close, send the Application for Adjustment of Claim by certified mail, or the filing date will be the date the Board actually received it.

When there is a dispute

Disagreements happen: late payments, a denied claim, benefits cut off early, unpaid medical bills. The Board offers two paths.

• Informal help. You can file a Request for Assistance (State Form 45442), and a Board Case Coordinator contacts the parties. The Board also offers mediation.
• A formal claim. If that does not resolve it, the dispute may only move forward once an Application for Adjustment of Claim (SF 29109) is filed. A Single Hearing Member is assigned, the case is set for a pre-trial conference or hearing, and the hearing member issues a written decision.
• Appeals. An Application for Review by the Full Board must be started within 30 days of that decision. Further appeals go to the Court of Appeals and then the Indiana Supreme Court.

Hearings on injuries in Indiana are generally held in the county where the injury happened or an adjoining county, unless the parties agree otherwise. The Board notes that an employee may pursue a claim without an attorney, while a corporation must have legal counsel. It also says it always recommends consulting an attorney if you are thinking about disputing your claim or feel your rights under the Act are not being upheld.

How workers’ comp attorney fees work in Indiana

Workers’ compensation fees are unusual: they are set by law and approved by the Board. Under Indiana Code 22-3-4-12, attorney fees under the Act are subject to the Board’s approval, and when compensation is ordered the Board fixes the claimant’s attorney fee in its decision.

The statutory schedule, when a claim results in a recovery, is published by the Board:

• A minimum of $200.
• 20 percent of the first $50,000 of recovery.
• 15 percent of recovery above $50,000.
• 10 percent of the value of unpaid, out-of-pocket or future medical expenses.
• The Board may order a different fee in a particular case.

A separate claim against someone other than your employer, covered in the next section, follows ordinary fee rules: in Indiana a contingency fee agreement must be in writing and signed by the client.

Claims against someone other than your employer

In general, workers’ compensation is the main remedy against your own employer for a job injury in Indiana, under Indiana Code 22-3-2-6. You usually cannot also sue the employer in court for the same injury.

Someone else may be a different story. If a person or company other than your employer, and other than a co-worker, is legally responsible for the injury, Indiana law generally lets the injured worker bring a claim against them even while workers’ comp is paid. Think of a delivery driver hit by another motorist, or a worker hurt by faulty equipment made by an outside company. That separate claim generally has a two-year deadline.

From any recovery in that outside claim, the employer or its insurer is generally repaid what it paid in compensation and medical and burial costs, less its share of the costs of bringing the claim, and it holds a lien on that recovery. How the two claims fit together is a good question for a licensed Indiana attorney.

If the employer had no coverage

Employers that must carry workers’ comp sometimes do not. If an employer failed to carry the required coverage when the injury happened, Indiana law lets the Board order up to double compensation for the employee, plus medical expenses and reasonable attorney fees.

Finding a workers’ comp lawyer in Fort Wayne

The free referral line connects you with the intake team of a participating independent attorney’s office; calls may be recorded, and the office should tell you its name. Or choose a firm yourself in the Fort Wayne personal injury law firm directory, where several firms list workers’ compensation. Hurt in a fall at work? The slip and fall guide covers falls on property owned by someone other than your employer. And if a family has lost someone to a work injury, see the wrongful death guide.

Questions people ask