A new case underscores the need for employers to bone up on the rules regarding when injured workers must be provided with a workers’ comp claim form. In the case, a California appeals court rejected an argument that David Carls, a sign painter for the Claremont Colleges in Southern California, should be denied workers’ compensation benefits for a back injury because he waited too long—almost seven years—to file the comp claim.
According to the appeals court, the statute of limitations for filing a claim stopped running because the Claremont Colleges never gave Carls a workers’ comp claim form even though it knew about his injury. It is important to note that this “tolling” of the statute of limitations doesn’t occur when an employee is aware of the right to file a claim, despite not receiving a claim form. But in this case, the court concluded that the evidence wasn’t strong enough to establish that Carls knew about his workers’ comp rights—and this was true even though he had filed previous comp claims.
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Here’s the lowdown on the claim form/notification rules: Within one working day of finding out about an on-the-job injury that results in lost work time beyond the day of injury or requires medical treatment beyond first aid, you must provide the injured worker with the Workers’ Compensation Claim Form (Form DWC 1), either in person or by first-class mail. The form is available from your insurer. In addition, you have five working days from learning about an injury to report it to your workers’ comp carrier (use Form DLSR 5020, Employer’s Report of Occupational Injury or Illness).
To read more about workers’ comp claim forms, click here. You can also link to the new case, CIGA v. WCAB, Calif. Court of Appeals (Dist. 2) No. B199404, 2008, online.