A very nice woman contacted us after breaking her arm on her part time job. She had been planning on quitting because her full time job had given her a raise and she didn’t like how the part time place treated her.
About a week before she was going to put in her notice, she fell and fractured the arm. There’s been a delay in getting her claim approved so she gave us a call. Here was her first question:
Can I Quit My Job And Still Get Workers Compensation To Pay My Bills
The bills were her only focus because she’s still able to work her full time job. In fact she told me she didn’t want any money at all from this case. Here’s what I told her.
Yes you can quit and doing so doesn’t have an affect on whether or not the bills will get paid. That said, it’s a bad idea to do so, at least without having a consultation with an attorney first.
If you do quit, the risk is that you might need vocational rehabilitation some day because your injury is so serious that you can’t work. They can deny that benefit by saying they would have created a job for you if you were still working there. In the case of this worker, it’s not likely a concern unless somehow she takes a very unexpected turn for the worse.
The other reason not to quit is if you do and get taken off work by your doctor with restrictions, you won’t get compensated for your time off unless the doctor says you can’t work at all. So if she ends up needing arm surgery and can’t work for a couple of months, it could be a challenge to get her paid. The insurance company will find a doctor to say you can work with a low lifting restriction like no more than five pounds. Once again, they will say you could have worked at your old place had you not left.
The other big reason is quitting could reduce your settlement, potentially by six figures or more. This of course depends on how bad the injury is and how good the recovery is. In this case, my caller didn’t know she would be entitled to a settlement. Assuming she makes a full recovery, which appears to be the case, she would still get a settlement, probably around $30,000 or so.
But if she makes a bad recovery, the case could potentially be worth much more. It’s not expected, but if her arm gets a bad infection or re-breaks, it’s possible that she may need to switch careers.
Bottom line is if you are only worried about your bills, you don’t have much to worry about in most cases. But nobody should quit before consulting with an attorney. If you do it could have terrible results for your case and cost you a lot of money in the long run.
If you’d like a free case review, you can call us any time at 312-346-5578.
