Does a disabled employee have to provide “objective” evidence of their disability to be awarded disability benefits? Objective evidence means it is clearly quantifiable, like an MRI or CT scan.
A federal district court awarded an employee disability benefits and the court’s decision was recently affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. There, the employee worked as a financial analyst where her duties included analyzing complex financial management systems, preparing technical evaluations and reports.
Is an employee disqualified from disability insurance merely because she was initially able to return to work after sustaining severe injuries? That was one of the issues a court had to decide in a disability lawsuit filed in federal court recently.
A statute of limitations is a deadline or amount of time a person has to bring forth a lawsuit. If a person fails to bring a lawsuit within the timeframe set by the statute of limitations, the claim can be forever time barred. Statute of limitations vary by state as well as the type of claim you are bringing.
When an employee brings a disability claim, insurers are always quick to point out what the employee’s obligations are as an insured under the disability policy. Long-term and short-term disability policies are contracts.
A 50 year old supervisor at UPS sued his long-term disability carrier, Aetna, and was awarded benefits due to insurer’s rejection of the employee’s complaints of pain. The employee started experiencing back pain which was directly to his job duties.
When an employee seeks disability benefits under an employer-sponsored disability plan, the disability policy often allows the insurer to have the employee subjected to an independent medical exam, or “IME.”
Employer-sponsored long term disability plans are governed by a federal statute commonly referred to as ERISA. After Congress enacted the statute, regulations were put in place to provide procedural safeguards to employees seeking benefits under the disability policy.
