Employment Issues
A work injury changes your job as well as your health. This section covers your rights as an employee during a comp claim: retaliation, firing, quitting, leave programs, and what your employer must and must not do.
Two sets of rules running at once
Your workers' comp claim runs between you and the insurance carrier (the company that pays benefits), supervised by the state. Your job runs between you and your employer, and Texas is an at-will employment state, which means either side can end the relationship at almost any time, for almost any reason. After a work injury, both sets of rules operate at once, and most of the painful surprises in this section come from mixing them up. The claim cannot be taken from you because you lost the job. The job is not guaranteed to you because you have the claim. But the law does draw one hard line, and it is the right place to start.
Can my employer punish me for filing a claim?
No. Texas law makes it unlawful for an employer to fire you or discriminate against you because you filed a workers' comp claim in good faith, hired a lawyer for your claim, or testified in a comp proceeding. This protection is enforced through a separate lawsuit against the employer, not through the comp system itself, and it has its own strict deadline.
Punishment is not always a firing. Demotions, cut shifts, impossible assignments, and write-ups that begin the week after your injury report can all be evidence of retaliation. Employer Retaliation in Texas Workers' Compensation Cases explains the law and its deadline, and Getting Fired While on Workers' Comp covers the termination scenario specifically.
Can my employer reduce my hours?
Generally, yes. In an at-will state an employer may change schedules and hours for business reasons, even for an injured worker. But two protections still apply. If the hours were cut because you filed a claim, that can be unlawful retaliation, and the timing of the cut is evidence. And if your reduced earnings during recovery are the result of your injury, income benefits can replace part of the difference; Partial Temporary Income Benefits Based on Disability explains the math, and Returning to Work at Reduced Wages covers the situation in full.
Your employer's duties
Start with Your Employer's Responsibilities After an Injury, which lists what your employer must do after you report an injury, and names the one critical task the law leaves entirely to you. If the company never wrote up your injury at all, If Your Employer Never Filed an Incident Report explains what that failure does and does not mean for your claim. And if someone at work is discouraging you from filing, promising to "take care of you" off the books, When Your Employer Tries to Stop You From Filing covers that pressure and how to answer it.
Losing or leaving the job
Getting Fired While on Workers' Comp addresses the firing itself: what it changes, what it cannot change, and the evidence to preserve. Quitting Your Job While You're on Workers' Comp covers the reverse decision, which affects your benefits more than most workers expect. If the company itself changes underneath you, When Your Employer Is Sold, Goes Bankrupt, or Closes explains why your claim survives even when the employer does not.
Leave programs and other benefits
Comp is not the only program that touches an injured worker's job, and the programs interact in ways that matter. FMLA Leave vs. Workers' Comp Time Off explains how federal job-protected leave runs alongside a comp claim. When Your Employer Puts You on Short-Term Disability Instead of Comp covers a substitution that is sometimes innocent and sometimes not. Unemployment Benefits and Workers' Comp addresses the conflict between telling one agency you can work and another you cannot. What ADA Accommodations Do and Don't Do Alongside a Comp Claim explains where federal disability law helps and where it does not.
How a claim can affect your future
A comp claim can follow you: background questions, privacy worries, future job applications. How a Comp Claim Affects Your Employment, Privacy, and Future separates the real consequences from the feared ones.
The pages in this section
01 Section overview Quitting Your Job While You’re on Workers’ Comp ▸
02 Section overview Your Employer’s Responsibilities After an Injury ▸
03 Section overview What ADA Accommodations Do and Don’t Do Alongside a Comp Claim ▸
04 Section overview When Your Employer Is Sold, Goes Bankrupt, or Closes ▸
05 Section overview When Your Employer Puts You on Short-Term Disability Instead of Comp ▸
06 Section overview FMLA Leave vs. Workers’ Comp Time Off ▸
07 Section overview Unemployment Benefits and Workers’ Comp ▸
08 Section overview How a Comp Claim Affects Your Employment, Privacy, and Future ▸
09 Section overview When Your Employer Tries to Stop You From Filing ▸
10 Section overview If Your Employer Never Filed an Incident Report ▸
11 Section overview Getting Fired While on Workers’ Comp ▸
Attorney notes regarding employer conduct & worker protections
Getting hurt at work can put an employee in a difficult position. You may depend on the same employer for your paycheck, health insurance, and future employment while also needing to report an injury, follow medical restrictions, and pursue a workers’ compensation claim.
Pay attention when:
- You are discouraged from reporting an injury: A supervisor should not convince you to hide a work injury or handle it “off the books.”
- You are pressured to work outside your restrictions: Returning to work should not require ignoring your doctor’s instructions.
- Your employer gives a false account of what happened: Statements about the accident, your wages, or your work status can affect your claim.
- Your treatment changes after you file a claim: A firing, demotion, threat, or other negative action may deserve a closer look when it follows a workers’ compensation claim.
- You are asked to sign something you do not understand: Find out what a document means before signing away something important.
At Abbott, Clay & Bedoy, we can separate ordinary workplace problems from conduct that may affect your workers’ compensation rights or raise other legal concerns.
You should not have to guess whether something happening at work could hurt your claim. Let us take a look at what is happening.
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