Wisconsin workers compensation temporary total disability benefits are paid as a wage replacement device. Wis. Stats. Ch. 102 does not define disability, but the term is understood to mean wage loss or limitation as a result of injury, defined in Wis. Stats. Sec. 102.01(2)(c) as “mental or physical harm to an employee caused by accident or disease.” In other words, a work-related injury or condition.
Temporary total disability (TTD) or temporary partial disability (TPD) are workers compensation benefits paid during the healing period. The healing period is the time while an injured worker is both convalescing from the injury and submitting to active treatment, and before the medical condition reaches a healing plateau. Permanent partial disability benefits are paid at the end of healing if the injured worker has a permanent disability assessed by the doctor. Permanent disability benefits can be total (PTD) or partial (PPD), and can result in a scheduled or a nonscheduled injury.
Temporary disability benefits are available only for the period of time during the healing period for the injury and in which he sustains an actual wage loss. In situations in which wage loss is total, the employee is entitled to temporary total disability (TTD) benefits. TTD benefits are two-thirds of the employee’s average weekly wage, but cannot exceed the maximum rates in effect on the date of injury. See Wis. Stat. Sec. 102.11(1). In situations in which wage loss is partial, the TTD benefit may be reduced to temporary partial disability (TPD).
If paid during the healing period from “other employment held by the employee when the injury occurred” its not counted in computing wage loss. Wis. Stat. Sec. 102.43(6)(a). Wages received from the injury employer or wages received from other employment obtained after the injury, however, are considered in computing actual wage loss. Wis. Stat. Sec. 102.43(6)(c).
An employee who has a new healing period, a renewed period of disability, but has retired, may not be entitled to workers compensation temporary disability benefits because he quit the employer and has withdrawn from the labor market, so has no wage loss. General Motors v. LIRC, No. 83-2378 (Wis. Ct. App. 1985) (unpublished opinion not citable Sec. 809.23(3)). However, if the work injury was part of the reason for retirement, the employee remains sufficiently attached to the labor market to be eligible for temporary disability benefits. Tower Auto. Milwaukee, LLC v. Samphere, No. 2009AP1043 , 2010 WL 431588 (Wis. Ct. App. 2010) (unpublished opinion citable for persuasive value Sec. 809.23(3)).
McCormick Law Office in Milwaukee, Wisconsin helps injured workers get wage replacement temporary total disability benefits from workers compensation. Always get off work excuses from the doctor in writing.
