Learn how South Carolina determines the amount of compensation you may be entitled to for a job-related accident or sickness, how long those payments will continue, and how workers’ compensation eligibility requirements may apply if you contract COVID-19 at work.
If you were injured or became ill while working in South Carolina, you may be eligible for payments under the state workers’ compensation system. The amount of compensation you get will be determined by the type of your injuries, your ability to return to work, your pre-injury wages, and other variables specific to your case. This page discusses how the most essential workers’ compensation payments in South Carolina, such as temporary and permanent disability benefits, are calculated. (To get these benefits, you must submit a workers’ compensation claim within the state’s time constraints and demonstrate that your injury or sickness is work-related.)
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Is it possible to get workers’ compensation in South Carolina if you get COVID-19 on the job?
On-the-job injuries in South Carolina do not include illnesses unless they are inevitably the consequence of an accident or qualify as an occupational disease. An illness must be directly caused by a danger unique to the employee’s employment and arise from continuous exposure to typical working circumstances in that job to be termed an occupational disease. The concept of an occupational sickness expressly excludes infectious diseases caused by colleague exposure or risks to which employees would have been exposed both on and off the job (S.C. Code 42-1-160, 42-11-10 (2020).)
In the context of a pandemic, those requirements present nearly insurmountable barriers for most South Carolina employees with COVID-19 workers’ comp claims—perhaps with the exception of first responders and some healthcare providers whose jobs require direct, repeated contact with infected patients. Some states have passed legislation that makes it simpler for certain frontline employees to get workers’ compensation payments for COVID-19 by assuming that the condition is work-related until the employer shows otherwise. South Carolina isn’t one of those states.
South Carolina Temporary Disability Benefits
If you are unable to return to your normal employment while healing from a work-related illness or sickness, temporary disability benefits will reimburse a part of your missed income. Unless you’re out of work for more than 14 days, you won’t get these benefits in South Carolina for the first seven calendar days of your disability. 42-9-200 (2020) S.C. Code
How South Carolina Determines Temporary Total Disability Benefits
If your accident renders you fully unable to work, you are entitled to benefits equivalent to two-thirds of your average weekly earnings before to the disability, up to the legal limit. The maximum for injuries occurring in 2020 is $866.67. (A list of the maximum compensation rates for previous years is available on the South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Commission’s website.) There is also a weekly minimum of $75, should you earned less before your accident. 42-9-10 (2020) S.C. Code
Temporary complete disability payments will be paid until you are able to return to work or your doctor determines you have attained maximum medical improvement (MMI), which indicates your condition has stabilized and is not likely to improve further.
Benefits for Temporary Partial Disability
You may be eligible for temporary partial disability payments if you are able to work but cannot earn as much as you did before your accident while you are still healing. This often occurs when your doctor has imposed limitations on your capacity to work—for example, limits on how long you can stand, how much you can lift, or how many hours you can work in a day—and the light-duty employment your employer has provided pays less than your regular income.
The gap between your pre-injury salary and what you can earn today is used to determine partial disability compensation (subject to the same maximum amount as for total disability benefits). Assume you regularly make $900 per week but can only earn $600 at a light-duty job. You’d get two-thirds of $300 ($900-600), or $200 every week.
In South Carolina, getting partial disability payments based on diminished earning capability is limited to 340 weeks. If you start receiving these benefits after being temporarily completely handicapped, the time you received total disability benefits will not be subtracted from your 340-week maximum (S.C. Code 42-9-20 (2020).)
South Carolina Permanent Disability Benefits
Once you’ve achieved MMI, your doctor will assess you to see whether your injury has caused you any long-term handicap, and if so, to what degree.
In general, there are two methods to qualify for permanent disability payments in South Carolina:
based on particular injuries or on a timetable for the lost use of a portion of your body, or based on lost earning ability.
Injuries that result in permanent total disability
If you have lost both hands, arms, shoulders, feet, legs, or hips as a consequence of your injuries, or a combination of those, you will be regarded permanently and completely incapacitated. Furthermore, if you’ve lost at least 50% of your back’s function, workers’ compensation will think you’re permanently and utterly handicapped until your employer or the insurance company shows otherwise.
Permanent total disability payments are paid at the same rate as temporary total disability benefits and have the same maximum and minimum amounts. In general, total disability payments in South Carolina are limited to 500 weeks. Those who are chronically, fully crippled and are paraplegic, quadriplegic, or have physical brain traumas, on the other hand, will get benefits for the rest of their lives.
The 500-week restriction applies to both temporary and permanent complete disability, which implies that any temporary disability might be removed from the 500 weeks. (S.C. Code Sections 42-9-10 and 42-9-30(21) (2020).)
Based on Scheduled Loss, Permanent Partial Disability
If your accident has resulted in permanent loss or loss of use of a portion of your body, you may be eligible for partial disability compensation under South Carolina law. These payments are provided weekly at the same rate as temporary total disability benefits (two-thirds of your pre-injury wages, with the same maximum and minimum). The payments will be made for a certain amount of time, based on the damaged body part and the level of your lost usage (expressed in a percentage).
The plan provides a proportional number of weeks that advantages would persist for 100% lost usage for certain bodily parts—most notably the extremities, shoulders, hips, and eyes, as well as hearing. Benefits would continue for a length of time according to the percentage of loss for less than total loss. The plan, for example, provides 140 weeks for a foot loss. If you’ve lost 50% of your foot’s use, you’d be eligible for payments for 70 weeks. The program addresses back pain differently, with a maximum of 300 weeks for 49% or less lost use and 500 weeks for 50% or more lost use. (As previously stated, the state will infer that you are permanently and utterly incapacitated if you have lost 50% or more of your back use.)
For lost use of other areas of your body that are not on the list (such as a neck injury, renal damage, or neurological damage), you will be issued a “whole person impairment rating,” which is represented as a percentage. This rating will then be used to calculate the length of your benefits as a percentage of 500 weeks. For example, if you have a 10% permanent handicap to your whole body, you will get paid for 50 weeks.
The scheduled loss legislation in South Carolina also permits workers’ compensation judges to award up to 50 weeks of payments for a substantial disfigurement to any portion of the body that is typically exposed at work. 42-9-30 (2020) S.C. Code
Permanent partial or whole disability based on lost earning capacity
Employees with permanent impairment to more than one body part in South Carolina may opt to receive benefits on either the “medical model” (based on particular injuries or planned losses to the afflicted body parts) or the “economic model” (that is, based on their loss of earning capacity, just as for temporary disability).
For example, if you suffer permanent impairments to both your back and a leg, you might opt to seek benefits based on your decreased capacity to earn as a consequence of both impairments if greater compensation would result. If you are absolutely unable to work, you will be paid two-thirds of your pre-injury income; otherwise, you will be paid two-thirds of the difference between your pre-injury wages and what you can earn today. The same maximum and minimum weekly amounts that apply to temporary disability apply to permanent disability based on income loss, as does the same maximum number of weeks you may receive benefits (500 weeks for total disability or 340 weeks for partial disability).
On the other hand, even if specialists have determined that you are fully unable to work due to a permanent impairment affecting just one scheduled body part, you may only get partial disability payments under the South Carolina schedule.
Other South Carolina Workers’ Compensation Benefits
Additional benefits provided under South Carolina workers’ compensation include:
Medical advantages. As long as your therapy is permitted, workers’ compensation will pay for any required medical care linked to a job injury. (Learn more about obtaining medical care via workers’ compensation.) You may also get reimbursed for mileage if you travel more than 10 miles round trip to and from doctor’s visits.
Benefits upon death. Workers’ compensation gives death payments to surviving dependents for 500 weeks if an employee dies as a consequence of a work-related accident or occupational sickness within a particular time frame. The total benefit amount is the same as the total disability benefit amount (with the same maximum and minimum), but it will be distributed among many surviving dependents. Workers’ compensation will also cover up to $12,000 in funeral costs for the dead employee.
If You Need Assistance Collecting Workers’ Compensation Benefits
If you’re having difficulties collecting the workers’ compensation payments you deserve in South Carolina, you should consult with a workers’ compensation lawyer. A lawyer familiar with South Carolina’s workers’ compensation system can review your claim, argue for your rights with the insurance company (and, if necessary, the workers’ compensation court), and guarantee that any settlement arrangement is fair.