WORKERS' COMPENSATION CLAIMS
Definition of Disability
Disability is defined under Michigan Law as a limitation in a workers wage earning capacity in work suitable to the worker's qualifications, experience and training. The worker must show a wage loss to be entitled to benefits. Benefits will be discontinued if the worker refuses a reasonable offer of employment. The work offered to the employee must be within the workers' medical limitations.
Certain types of injuries called "specific losses" pay defined periods of disability regardless of when the worker is able to return to work. Those specific losses usually involve the amputation of extremities or parts of extremities or the loss or partial loss of sight. In addition to compensation for disabilities related to single event injuries an employer is responsible for compensating diseases related to employment including heart and lung disease as well as diseases caused by cumulative injuries sometimes the result of repetitive or consistent exposures to harmful activity.