May 12, 2023
The workers' compensation system provides two kinds of benefits: lost wages ("indemnity benefits") and coverage for medical bills. If you lose more than one week of work because of your work-related injury or illness you are entitled to be paid for the time you are out. In order to determine the amount you are entitled to at any given time, we need two pieces of information: how much you were earning per week at the time of your injury and the percentage of disability that you have (which is determined by medical providers) during any given period that you are out.
The amount of your weekly earnings is called your "Average Weekly Wage" ("AWW") and is calculated by applying one of several formulas to your gross weekly earnings (before taxes, social security, etc. is taken out) during the 52-week (i.e. one year) period prior to your injury. The law requires the employer at the job where you were injured to supply payroll information for this purpose. However, many people are working more than one job at the time they sustain a work-related injury or illness and the question arises as to whether they can be paid for time lost from jobs other than the one where they were injured. The answer, generally, is yes.
If you have more than one job when you are hurt, we can usually add the earnings from any other jobs to your AWW, so that the earnings from all your jobs are accounted for when you receive payments from the workers’ compensation insurance carrier. However, because the employers from those jobs are not a party to a comp claim for an injury at a different employer, the law requires that we produce proof of employment and earnings for those jobs if we want them added to your AWW. Accordingly, it's important to make sure that you let us know right from the outset of your case if you had more than one job at the time you were hurt or got sick, so we can ensure that you are fully compensated for lost wages from all your jobs, not just the one where you were injured.
To schedule an appointment or discuss your case for free with one of our attorneys, contact Zea Proukou in Rochester or Canandaigua today. We can be reached by phone at 585-423-9444 or 315-853-9444 or via email by visiting our website’s contact page.