Partial Disability Benefits for Injured Amazon Workers

Chicago Lawyers Helping Disabled Employees

Amazon has represented itself as a company that offers a multitude of opportunities to its workers. Unfortunately, its emphasis on efficiency and speed can also endanger workers and make them more likely to get injured on the job. Injuries may result in temporary or permanent disabilities, which may be total or partial in nature. When disabilities result from work injuries, partial disability benefits for injured Amazon workers may be warranted. If you were partially disabled due to an injury at work, you should consult the Chicago workers’ compensation attorneys of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca to understand your rights.

Partial Disability Benefits for Injured Amazon Workers

Partial disability benefits may be awarded on a temporary or permanent basis. If you sustain a broken bone on the job, for example, you may be able to work at a desk, but not in the warehouse, and may be considered temporarily, partially disabled. On the other hand, if your leg was crushed and amputated by a vehicle in the warehouse, you might be permanently partially disabled. There are four kinds of permanent partial disability benefits that may be awarded: disfigurement, wage differential, schedule injuries, and nonscheduled injuries.

Temporary Partial Disability

If you are temporarily, partially disabled, you may work with restrictions, though your earning may be less than they were prior to the accident. You may be eligible for temporary partial disability benefits, which are available when an injured worker is undergoing medical treatment, but hasn’t yet achieved maximum medical improvement. The reduction in income can be based on restrictions imposed by the doctor, or because the employer can only accommodate the doctor’s restrictions by putting them in a job that pays less.

Temporary partial disability benefits are calculated by looking at 2/3 of the difference between the average amount you earned before the injury and your current earnings.

Permanent Partial Disability

Permanent partial disability benefits may be awarded if you’ve reached maximum medical improvement with your work-related injuries. If you lose the use of some part of your body or lose a limb or other part of your body, you may qualify for permanent partial disability benefits.

Wage differential benefits are awarded to workers who start a new job because they were injured at a prior job and the new job doesn’t pay as well as the old one. The wage differential award is equal to 2/3 of the difference between pay at the job where the work injuries were sustained and what they earn at the new job. These can be paid for the later of five years or until you reach age 67.

In Chicago, you could receive partial disability benefits according to a schedule of injuries, which sets values for partial body parts to determine how many weeks of benefits you can receive. The permanent partial disability benefits are paid at 60% of your average weekly wage. In order to determine the number of weeks this is paid, you take the percentage of loss in the body part and multiply that by the value in the table. The amount of your schedule injuries award is determined by looking at the permanent partial disability weekly rate multiplied by the number of weeks.

Certain injuries may not be set forth in the schedule, but still represent a major loss. In cases involving non-schedule injuries, you may be able to receive a percentage of 500 weeks of benefits. In this method, the percentage of loss is determined based on the loss of the person as a whole. Your permanent partial disability rate will be multiplied by the number of weeks of benefits.

Another way permanent partial disability benefits can be calculated is the disfigurement method. If your injury causes serious and permanent disfigurement to your face, head, chest above the armpits, neck, leg below the knee or arms, you may be able to get a maximum of 162 weeks of benefits. Either you and the employer need to agree on the number of weeks of benefits or an Illinois Workers Compensation Commission arbitrator will set the number of weeks. The number of weeks will be multiplied by 60% of your average weekly wage, You cannot get both disfigurement benefits and loss of use schedule injuries benefits.

Third-Party Claims

If you were injured in a vehicle accident that occurred while you were on the job with Amazon, you may be able to recover damages by retaining a lawyer to bring a third-party lawsuit against the person responsible for your injuries. Third parties that might bear responsibility for a vehicle accident could include another driver, a property owner, or a vehicle manufacturer.

Consult a Workers’ Compensation Attorney in Chicago

If you are concerned about partial disability benefits for injured Amazon workers, you should talk over your situation with the seasoned workers’ compensation lawyers of Katz, Friedman, Eisenstein, Johnson, Bareck & Bertuca. We represent warehouse workers and flex drivers in Chicago, Rockford, Quincy, Champaign, and Aurora, along with Adams, Winnebago, Sangamon, Cook, and Kane Counties. Contact us at 312-724-5846 or complete our online form.