You have always been an excellent employee and you’ve never had any disciplinary issues at work. Your performance has never been questioned, and you have a track record of excellent performance reviews.
However, you also work in a relatively dangerous profession where accidents and injuries do happen. You’re involved in an accident one day, in which you suffer injuries on the job. You decide to pursue workers’ comp benefits to cover your medical bills, lost wages and other such costs.
Your boss is unhappy with this arrangement and decides to terminate your position. Is it legal for them to fire you just so they can get around paying workers’ comp benefits?
This is illegal retaliation
In short, no, this is a highly illegal practice. Retaliation over a workers’ comp claim is prohibited. If your boss fires you simply because you filed that claim or because you got hurt on the job, they have violated your rights, and you may be able to take legal action.
This doesn’t mean that all workers’ comp claims are valid or will always be paid out. There are situations in which people are denied when it’s determined that they don’t actually deserve workers’ comp benefits. For example, someone may get injured at home and then falsely claim it was a workplace injury.
But even if your boss doesn’t think your claim is valid, it’s still a violation of your rights to just fire you for filing a claim. They need to follow the proper legal steps to work through the claims process, rather than just terminating you to avoid it. If you find yourself in this position, be sure you understand exactly what legal options you have.
