A serious work injury in Nevada starts three clocks at once. They do not run at the same speed. Workers compensation controls your wage benefits and your medical care. The federal Family and Medical Leave Act controls a block of protected leave. The Americans with Disabilities Act, plus Nevada’s own discrimination statute, controls what happens when that leave runs out. Most people watch only the first clock. Then the job disappears while the claim is still open.
Job protection is not one rule. It is three overlapping sets of rules. Each one carries its own trigger, its own paperwork and its own deadline. This guide walks through all three as they work for Clark County employees. Think of a warehouse off Cheyenne Avenue, or a resort back of house on the Strip.
Clock One, Workers Compensation and the Wage Benefit
Nevada’s industrial insurance system pays two things after an accepted claim. It pays for your treatment, and it pays part of your wages while you cannot work. NRS 616C.475 sets the wage side. The statute pays 66 2/3 percent of the average monthly wage during temporary total disability. It applies to an employee injured by accident arising out of and in the course of employment. Most people know that benefit by its initials, TTD.
The statute also puts a schedule on the insurer. Once it allows the claim, the first payment must go out within 14 working days. The clock starts at the initial certification of disability. Payments follow regularly after that. So when checks stop without explanation, that timing is the first thing to look at.
What switches the wage benefit off
NRS 616C.475 lists when payments for temporary total disability cease. A physician or chiropractor may find you physically capable of gainful employment suited to your education, training and experience. Your employer may offer light duty, or work modified to the limits a physician set. Incarceration stops the benefit too, with narrow exceptions. That middle item matters most, because a light duty offer can switch off the wage check while you still hurt.
The statute does control the shape of that offer. An employer has to confirm an offer of temporary light duty in writing within 10 days. The position has to sit in a location and schedule substantially similar to your job at the time of the injury. The statute addresses the gross wage as well. So an offer that moves you across the valley, or onto graveyard, deserves a careful read before anyone signs anything.
The 28 day marker
NRS 616C.545 adds a checkpoint most injured workers never hear about. Say you do not return to work for 28 consecutive calendar days after the injury. The insurer then has to contact your treating physician or chiropractor. The insurer asks whether physical limitations on your ability to work exist, and whether those limits are permanent or temporary. That single answer feeds vocational rehabilitation, and it feeds every later argument about accommodation. Keep a copy of it.
Clock Two, What FMLA Adds and Where It Stops
FMLA is federal. It guards the job rather than the paycheck. An eligible employee of a covered employer may take up to 12 workweeks of leave in a 12 month period. The reason has to be a serious health condition. Eligibility turns on three facts. You need 12 months of service and 1,250 hours worked in the prior year. Your worksite also needs 50 or more employees within 75 miles. Large Las Vegas resorts, hospitals and distribution centers clear that easily. Small contractors and single location shops often do not.
Two features surprise people. First, FMLA leave usually runs at the same time as time off for a work injury, because employers designate it that way. So the twelve weeks can burn while TTD checks are still arriving. Second, FMLA also keeps your group health coverage in place, which matters when a second surgery sits ahead of you. We cover the moment the twelve weeks expire in our guide on what happens when you run out of FMLA leave.
At the end of the leave, the employer generally has to restore you to the same or an equivalent job. A light duty position is not the same job. An employee may usually decline light duty without giving up FMLA rights. That choice collides with the comp benefit, though, because turning down a light duty offer can still switch off TTD under NRS 616C.475. Two clocks, two different answers, one decision that lands on you.
Clock Three, Accommodation After the Leave Runs Out
The end of FMLA is not the end of protection. The Americans with Disabilities Act can require more leave, a schedule change or equipment as a reasonable accommodation. The limit is undue hardship on the business. The Department of Justice sets out the structure and coverage of the statute in its introduction to the ADA. Employment sits in Title I, and the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission enforces that title.
The mechanism is the interactive process. You ask, in plain words, for a change that lets you perform the essential functions of your job. Your employer answers, seeks medical support where it needs it, and discusses options. Neither side gets to walk away from that conversation. A blanket policy that ends employment whenever a worker cannot return without restrictions after a fixed number of weeks is the classic trap. Our post about the worker fired after asking for reasonable accommodation shows what that pattern looks like in a real file.
Accommodations after a serious work injury in Nevada are usually unglamorous. A stool at a station that normally stands. A lifting limit with a second person on heavy moves. A later start so morning therapy fits. More unpaid leave for a defined, finite stretch. Reassignment to a vacant position you can perform. None of that asks an employer to invent a new job, and none of it is a favor.
Nevada’s Own Discrimination Statute
State law runs alongside the federal one. NRS 613.330 lists the unlawful employment practices. An employer may not fail or refuse to hire a person because of disability. It may not discharge that person either. It may not discriminate as to compensation, terms, conditions or privileges of employment. The definitions in NRS 613.310 matter as much as the prohibition. Disability there means a physical or mental impairment that substantially limits one or more major life activities. The term also covers a record of such an impairment, and a person the employer regards as having one.
NRS 613.310 also defines employer. The definition covers a person with 15 or more employees for each working day. That has to hold in each of 20 or more calendar weeks, in the current year or the one before. So the state statute reaches well below the FMLA headcount. Under NRS 613.405, a person injured by an unlawful employment practice may file a complaint with the Nevada Equal Rights Commission. Disability is one of the listed grounds. NERC keeps a Las Vegas office, and the filing windows are short enough to catch people by surprise.
Where a Work Injury Becomes More Than a Comp Claim
Comp is the employer lane. As to the employer, it is usually the only lane. It is not the only lane in the case. Think of a subcontractor’s equipment, a delivery driver’s truck, a defective ladder or an unguarded floor opening. A worker hurt by any of those may hold a separate claim against that outside party. Those claims reach damages comp never pays, pain and suffering among them. For someone facing a spinal cord injury or a brain injury, that gap decides whether a family keeps its house. Our catastrophic injury page explains how a third party case runs alongside an open comp claim.
Timing controls that side too. NRS 11.190 allows two years to bring an action for injuries to a person. The injuries have to come from the wrongful act or neglect of another. Evidence moves faster than two years. Rented equipment goes back to the yard, and crews rotate off. A Summerlin jobsite looks nothing in April like it did the previous October.
Retaliation, and the Line Employers Cross
Nevada courts have long recognized a retaliatory discharge claim. It applies when an employer fires a worker for pursuing an industrial insurance claim. That wrong turns on motive, so it sits apart from a disability discrimination claim. Look for pattern evidence instead of a smoking gun. A clean review history that sours right after the claim goes in. A first written warning dated days after a doctor’s note. A reorganization that somehow reaches one person. Our discussion of modified duty and light duty terminations covers how those files usually read.
The Paperwork That Decides These Cases
Keep these six items in one folder.
- Your written notice of injury to the employer, plus the claim form your provider files.
- Every certification of disability, with the physical limits on it and whether they are permanent or temporary.
- Any written light duty offer, showing the location, the schedule and the wage.
- Your accommodation request, sent by email so a date exists on it.
- The employer’s FMLA designation notice, because it starts the twelve week count.
- Pay records and schedules from before and after the injury.
Send your requests in writing, then keep the reply. Most of these disputes come down to who wrote what, and on which date.
A Realistic Ninety Day Plan
Report the injury the day it happens. Get the claim paperwork to a provider quickly. Ask your employer in writing whether it is counting your absence against FMLA. Track the date the twelve weeks expire. Then work backward two weeks and open the accommodation conversation. Ask your physician to write restrictions in job terms rather than medical terms. No lifting over twenty pounds is easier to accommodate than a diagnosis. Keep a plain calendar of every call and every letter.
When a light duty offer lands, read the location, the hours and the pay before you answer. Compare all three against the restrictions on your certification. If they do not match, say so in writing rather than simply not showing up. Silence reads as refusal on both clocks.
Getting Your Footing Before the Next Deadline Lands
A serious work injury in Nevada leaves little time for legal study. The Bourassa Law Group offers a free consultation to sort out where you stand on each clock. We look at what your employer still owes you, and whether an outside party shares the blame. Bring your certifications, your leave letters and any light duty offer, and we will map the dates with you. You can start that conversation through our contact page while the calendar still works in your favor.
This article offers general information about Nevada and federal law, and it is not legal advice. Reading it creates no attorney client relationship. Your own facts control the answer. Put them in front of a Nevada lawyer before a deadline settles the question.
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