Revised Work Comp policy

dwitt

We recently made a lot of changes to our Work Comp policy which we incorporated into our Employee Handbook effective April 1, 2006. Prior to that date we had a WC policy in place, however it was vague in some areas. It has now been revised to cover Temporary Modified Duty for 12 weeks and also clearly states that after 12 weeks of WC leave or temporary modified duty, an employee will no longer maintain an active status of employment (eligible for COBRA, etc).

I have an employee who was injured while at work over a year ago and was off on work comp leave for 10 months. He returned to work last Oct. and since that time we've been accomodating him with his work restrictions. He has been seeing a physical therapist on a regular basis. Today, we recieved a note from his physician that states he will no longer require physical therapy but will be on work restrictions for an indefinate period of time (forever).

Rather than call our labor attorney, I'm hoping the forumites can offer some advice. My question is, Can we enforce the new rules of our revised work comp policy that became effective April 1st that states we will only provide 12 weeks of temporary modified duty? My concern is that he was injured prior to this 4/1 revision and that all rules applicable to his ongoing work comp status would have to be from the previous work comp policy.

We are a manufacturing facility fearing to set precedence (we have many work comp claims) with any decision we make, and we also don't want to create a permanent modified duty position. Any advice would be much appreciated!

System

I beleive the fact that his injury pre-dated your revised policy could present you with problems, namely that your new policy was in response to his injury and recovery (retaliation?). Going forward, I beleive that your limitation on modified duty is appropriate and necessary. Employees cannot remain on modified duty indefinately and need to know that there is a limitation and a point where they can either perform their functions or not. Even though you may not apply the new policy to this particular employee, you can still put a reasonable limitation on how long he can reamin on light duty. The employer does not have an obligation to aloow an employee to remain in that status forever. I would tell him that your modified duty accomodations will expire at some future date, maybe 30-45 more days, and that you need to have him back at his regular duties or face termination. Make sure his condition does not qualify as a disability under the ADA in which you may be required to make reasonable accomodations around his restrictions. However, he still has to be able to perfrom the proverbial "essential functions", and if his restrictions cannot be reasonably accomodated, you have the right to terminate.