If you’re on Workers’ Comp, I hope you read my “Ten Compmandments” in my blog post “Elmira Workers’ Comp Attorney Discusses the Ten Commandments of Workers’ Comp.” A guy by the name of Lee emailed me a great question about labor market attachment based on that blog post. His question was “if a case is closed and the claimant has been receiving a monthly check for over 10 years, does this claimant now have to find some kind of work or is this rule only applied to cases not yet settled?” The short answer is: YES! No matter how long you’ve been at a permanent partial disability, you have an obligation to look for work within your restrictions.

The other very important thing I want to mention is that the bad economy has nothing to do with your obligation to look for work. If you’re partially disabled, you have an obligation to make a good faith effort to look for work within your restrictions. The fact that the economy is bad only means that you may not get a job, but it doesn’t change your obligation to look for a job. If you’re partially disabled you should be applying for at least 2 to 3 jobs per week and you should make and keep a record of your efforts in a notebook. If you go somewhere to apply and they won’t take your application because they’re not hiring because of the bad economy, you should document that you went to the employer and that they weren’t taking applications.

Thanks for reading,
Eric

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Eric L. Johnson, Esq.
Workers’ Compensation and Social Security Disability Attorney
Ziff Law Firm, LLP
303 William St., Elmira, NY 14902
Tel: (607) 733-8866
Fax: (607) 732-6062
Toll Free: 1-800-943-3529
Email: ejohnson@zifflaw.com
Web: http://www.zifflaw.com