In Wisconsin workers compensation TPD or temporary partial disability benefits are workers comp benefits paid to you if you can only work part-time as a result of a work-related injury.
Temporary total or temporary partial disability, refers to wage loss during the healing period. The healing period refers to the time period during which an injured worker is both convalescing from the injury and submitting to active treatment, and before the medical condition becomes stationary. Benefits for temporary disability are available only for the period of time during which the employee is within the healing period for the injury and sustains an actual wage loss. See Wis. Stat. § 102.43. TTD benefits equal two-thirds of the employee’s average weekly wage, and cannot exceed two-thirds of the maximum wage in effect on the date of injury. See Wis. Stat. §§ 102.11(1), 102.03(4).
In situations in which wage loss is partial, the TTD benefit may be reduced to temporary partial disability (TPD).
Wisconsin courts have long understood healing period to mean “the period prior to the time when the condition becomes stationary.” Knobbe v. Industrial Comm’n, 208 Wis. 185, 189 (1932). The Knobbe court explained that during that period, “the employee is submitting to treatment, is convalescing, still suffering from his injury, and unable to work because of the accident. The interval may continue until the employee is restored so far as the permanent character of his injuries will permit.” Id. at 190. As the court later expressed in Larsen Co. v. Industrial Commission, 9 Wis. 2d 386, 392 (1960), “[a]n employee’s disability is no longer temporary when the point is reached that there has occurred all of the improvement that is likely to occur as a result of treatment and convalescence.” The phrase reaching a plateau is often used to mean that the employee is coming to the end of the healing period.
The TTD rate is 2/3 of the employee’s average weekly wage. The AWW is either the employee’s hourly earnings are multiplied by the average hours worked per day; this product is then multiplied by the average days per week. Or, determine the employee’s actual gross earnings in the 52 calendar weeks preceding the injury if the employee has worked during at least 6 weeks of those 52 weeks. Divide the actual gross earnings by the number of weeks in that 52-week period in which the employee earned any wage. The average weekly wage is the higher of these two calculations. Wis. Stat. Sec. 102.11(1)(d).
In Milwaukee, Wisconsin McCormick Law Office attorneys represent injured workers in Wisconsin workers compensation claims which may include claims for TPD or TTD benefits. Believe in better.
