New Jersey: No Lost Wages = No Temporary Disability Benefits

Stressing that temporary disability benefits are intended to be a partial substitute for a loss of current wages and that actual absence from work is a prerequisite to a temporary disability award, a New Jersey appellate court affirmed the denial of such benefits to an unemployed New Jersey firefighter, who suffered a fractured fibula and other injuries when she slipped and fell on ice as she and others fought a multi-alarm file. Prior to the date of injury, the volunteer firefighter had stopped working to care for her ailing father. After his death, she did not return to any gainful work, but did return to volunteer firefighting, which she had enjoyed for some 14 years. Readers should note that under New Jersey law, she did qualify for both medical treatment and permanent disability for her injuries.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Kocanowski v. Township of Bridgewater, 2017 N.J. Super. LEXIS 171 (Dec. 11, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 93.01.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see