Nevada Work Injury Laws – 4 That You Should Know

Posted on April 13, 2022

Employees who sustain a work injury in the state of Nevada usually cannot sue their employer for damages. Instead, their “exclusive remedy” is to file a workers’ compensation claim with the employer’s insurance carrier. Here are four things to know about Nevada workers’ compensation laws.

1. Workers’ compensation benefits include medical care, disability, and training;
2. Workers’ compensation insurance coverage is no-fault;
3. There are strict deadlines to file a workers’ comp claim; and
4. Independent contractors are not eligible for worker’s comp.

1. Workers’ compensation benefits include medical care, disability, and training

Depending on the nature and extent of an employee’s work-related injuries, the employee may be able to receive one or more of the following workers’ comp benefits.

• medical treatment from an authorized medical provider and/or chiropractors;
• temporary disability;
• permanent disability;
• death benefits for spouses and dependents of deceased workers;
• vocational rehabilitation; and/or
• mileage reimbursement

Temporary total disability (TTD) and permanent total disability (PTD) benefits are two-thirds of the worker’s average monthly wages. And temporary partial disability (TPD) benefits are what the TTD amount would have been minus the employee’s new salary for light- or modified work.

Calculating permanent partial disability (PPD) is a little trickier. First, the employee’s doctor will assign the employee an impairment percentage. (For example, a worker who is half impaired gets a 50% disability rating.) Then this disability rating gets multiplied by the worker’s pre-injury salary and then multiplied again by .006. Many employees choose to receive PPD payments as a lump sum.

Note that Nevada’s workers’ compensation system caps 2022 disability benefits at $4,618.55 per month.¹

2. Workers’ compensation insurance coverage is no-fault

For injured employees to benefit from Nevada workers’ compensation coverage, they do not have to prove that the employer did something wrong. Instead, they just have to show that it is more likely than not that their injury was caused by work. It does not matter whether the workplace injury was from a singular unforeseen accident or whether it is an occupational injury from repeated exposure or repetitive movements.²

3. There are strict deadlines to file a workers’ comp claim

Injured workers must report their injury to a supervisor within seven days. This incident report is called the Notice of Injury or Occupational Disease (Form C-1).

Then the injured worker must go to an authorized provider under the worker’s comp insurance. The worker and doctor must both complete the Employee’s Claim for Compensation/Report of Initial Treatment (Form C-4). This claim must be mailed in within three days of treatment and within 90 days of the injury.

The employer’s insurance company then has 30 days to accept or deny the worker’s comp claim. Workers who disagree with the result can appeal it within 70 days of the decision.

(All relevant forms are also available online with instructions from the Nevada Department of Business and Industry, Division of Industrial Relations (DIR), Workers’ Compensation Section (WCS).)³

4. Independent contractors are not eligible for worker’s comp.

Under Nevada state law, independent contractors are not considered employees and are therefore not entitled to file for workers’ comp. So when independent contractors sustain a workplace injury, they can hire a Nevada attorney and file a traditional civil lawsuit against the employer.⁴

Personal injury law firms typically operate by contingency fee. This means the personal injury attorney does not get paid until if and when the accident victim gets a settlement.

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Legal References