In a Cape Cod workers’ compensation case, one of the most important issues is whether the worker (or “claimant”) has suffered a permanent physical impairment due to an on-the-job accident or a work-related illness. If so, the next inquiry is usually whether the impairment is such that the worker cannot return to work as a result.
The question of whether the claimant can return to work involves more than the issue of whether the injured individual can go back to the same job that he or she held at the time of the event giving rise to his or her permanent physical impairment. Rather, the question is whether he or she can return to any type of job at all – even one that he or she has never done before.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that a person who has done nothing but hard physical labor will be expected to shift into a desk job for which he lacks the requisite education and training. These matters, too, are taken into consideration. A recent case involved a related question, i.e. whether a skilled worker was totally disabled if he could still perform low-paying unskilled work.