Welcome to Lawshelf’s video-course on workers’ compensation. This course provides a comprehensive overview of workers’ compensation law. Though workers’ compensation law varies from state to state, the law discusses trends and general rules that apply throughout the country. Where the rules vary greatly from state to state, the course discusses the variances and provides examples how different states treat the issues.

This course is of moderate difficulty and some background in employment law (including the other LawShelf courses in employment law) is recommended.

The course begins with an overview of workers compensation and a discussion of the various elements of workers compensation claims.

To sustain a workers’ compensation claim, the worker must show that he was injured by accident during an employer-employee relationship and that the injury arose out of and occurred within the course of employment. We will focus on each element in detail.

Next, we will look at the various types of benefits, including temporary and permanent disability benefits, partial and total benefits, medical benefits and death benefits.

The second part of the course looks further into the minutia of workers’ compensation law, spending modules on scheduled injuries and nonscheduled injuries. Scheduled injuries are those for which state statutes outlines or schedules a maximum number of weeks of benefits to which the worker may be entitled. Non-scheduled injuries are those injuries for which statutes provide other means of calculating benefits. We will look at how benefits for both types of injuries are calculated.

          Our last module looks at pre-existing conditions and the way the impact eligibility for workers compensation benefits. For example, how can it be determined whether an aggravation of an existing injury is considered a new injury? And how do you apportion various causes of a single injury? These are some of the issues that we will focus on in module six.

          When you complete this course, you should have a comprehensive understanding of the workers compensation system and have the basis upon which to research further the rules that apply to a specific jurisdiction or a specific case.

          Best of luck and we welcome your feedback.