What is the Statute of Limitations for a Workers’ Compensation Claim?

Posted in Workers' Compensation Laws on July 13, 2021

If you sustain an injury at work, you should be able to recover compensation for your losses. This includes coverage of medical bills, most of your lost income, and disability benefits in some circumstances. However, just like other injury claims, there are time limits attached to filing a workplace injury claim in Arizona. Here, we want to discuss the various deadlines in place for a workers’ comp claim, including the statute of limitations in these situations.

Reporting a Work Injury in Arizona

When we look directly at the information available from the Industrial Commission of Arizona, we can see that the overall workers’ compensation statute of limitations in Arizona is one year from the date an injury occurs. 

In most states, the law is very specific about how quickly an employer needs to be notified about a workplace injury, often within a few weeks after the injury occurs. These states then have an overall statute of limitations under which the claim must be filed. Arizona law is fairly vague about whether or not the work injury has to be reported to an employer within a few days or weeks. The only thing they state is specifically is the overall one-year statute of limitations.

However, it is strongly encouraged that any work injury victim report their injury to their employer as soon as possible. This begins the claims process and triggers other deadlines. These other deadlines include the following:

• After an employer received notification of the injury, they must fill out an Employer’s Report of Injury with the Industrial Commission of Arizona (ICA) within 10 days. 
• Injured workers must file their claim directly with the ICA in order to start receiving workers’ compensation benefits. After the ICA receives the written claim, they have 21 days to either accept or deny the claim.
• If you do not agree with the ICA decision about your claim, you have to request a hearing. Arizona law gives you 90 days to file a request for a hearing to begin your appeals process.

It is important to understand that simply notifying an employer does not constitute filing an actual workers’ compensation claim. For example, if a person notifies their employer about an injury on the same day that the injury occurred but did not need immediate medical care, they could later discover that the injury is worse than they realized. If the injured worker needs to file a work injury claim a few weeks after the initial report, they can still do so because this would fall within the one-year statute of limitations for filing a workers’ compensation claim.

Finding a Phoenix Workers’ Compensation Attorney

If you or somebody you care about has been injured on the job, you may need to seek assistance from a skilled Phoenix workers’ compensation attorney. An attorney will be able to examine your entire claim, which includes conducting a complete investigation into the incident and ensuring that you are evaluated by a trusted medical professional. Your attorney will handle all of the appeals processes on your behalf and help make sure that you recover the compensation you are entitled to.