North Carolina Workers’ Compensation for Part Time / Seasonal Workers

Below you will find a Hardison & Cochran Podcast episode on the topic of North Carolina Workers’ Compensation and Part Time / Seasonal Workers . The transcript of the episode is also below for those who would simply like to read and not listen. To listen or read transcripts from other podcasts from Hardison & Cochran, please visit our Podcast Page.

Episode #11 North Carolina Workers’ Comp for Part Time / Seasonal Workers

Bill Campbell:
All right. We’ve been talking a lot about worker’s comp in these podcasts and it’s kind of assumed in all of them that we’re talking about people who have full time jobs. Now, there’s a lot of people out there who have part time jobs. Is there any kind of difference in any of this information you’re going through and all these podcasts that apply to someone with a part time job and they’re injured as far as compared to somebody who has a full time job and is injured?

Ben Cochran:
Information I like to give folks who were injured on a part time job, the questions and the issues that you run into with that are; number one, is this is my part time job. Am I available for Workers’ compensation benefits? The answer to that, clearly yes.

Now since it’s your part time job, the amount of hours that you work there and how much you make a week is going to be significantly less. Your average weekly wage and compensation rate is still going to be determined based upon the prior 52 weeks that you worked part time. Now, if you’ve only worked there for a limited period of time, then that will also affect the amount of compensation that you received.

So the next question that people say is, okay, well I’m injured on my part time job. I can’t do my part time job, but I also can’t do my full time job. Can I get compensation for being out of work for my full time job? The answer is no. The insurance company or employer, they are only liable for the risk that you were exposed to based upon your part time job. So if you’re only making $200 a week at your part time job and you get injured, you’re only going to receive a compensation of two thirds of $200.

Unfortunately, it may make it so you’re not able to go back into your full time job where you make $600 bucks a week. So at this point you’re not going to receive any compensation even though you can’t go to work to make the $600 from the insurance company for the job that you worked at, because they only have to pay you two thirds of the $200.