What is my South Carolina Workers Compensation Case Worth?
The South Carolina Workers’ Compensation laws are very unique and can be complex and confusing to an injured workers In fact, I would argue that it has its own language. Frequently lawyers will ask do you speak comp? It has forms, there are commissioners not judges, there is wage replacement not lost wages, and so on. Before you can know how much your case is worth you must have a little background as to the system itself.
South Carolina Workers’ Comp is designed to make you whole, not rich
Workers’ Compensation in South Carolina is designed to make you whole from a South Carolina on the job injury. The system really cannot take away the injury but it can provide you with medical treatment and other benefits. Once you have been released from medical care you are often given an impairment rating to a particular body part. So if you are given a 10% to the arm, that means you have 90% good arm. That 10% is used as part of a formula to determine the value of your comp claim.
Body Parts Have Specific Values
The one thing people cannot get over is how each body part is given a certain value of weeks. The easiest way to think about this is that if you lost the entire body part then it is worth X number of weeks. For example a total loss of the arm is worth 220 weeks. Some of the more common weeks and body parts are:
- back 300 weeks
- arm 220 weeks
- hand 185 weeks
- leg 195 weeks
- foot 140 weeks
- shoulder 300 weeks
- hip 280 weeks
- and so on.
