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I have been on Short Term Disability since 8/10/11, due to a knee injury and have decided to attend a local university for a one year accelerated nursing program.This program begins today. My concern is being on short term disabillity and attending school for a period of one year. Essentially I am determining the duration of the injury to complete school and Transfer into a different career. I have had knee surgery on my other knee for the same problem and have dealt with the effects for the past 3 years. I know the expected results that injury is covered under pa workers comp. My job is a delivery driver for UPS, I am represented by our union and have up to 2 years to return to full duty. My concern is I am damaging my knees and do not want to go down this path again and would like to get this new injury repaired while going to school. Can I be fired for going to school while out on short term disability which last up to 24 months? Is this the right path to take due to the injury just occured on 8/10/11, or should I as advised by my comp attorney, go out under workers comp law and attend the schooling during the buyout period.This new injury is not a comp injury. Is it legal if I am under a doctors care to do this and attend school. I am concerned because the classes will take One year to complete, and it would appear I am choosing the duration of my injury time to complete this schooling? When I am trying to just change career paths while injured. Thanks for you time
Optional Information: State/Country relating to question: Pennsylvania Already Tried: advice from a workers comp lawyer. Who wanted me to go out on comp for the pre- exsisting injury covered under comp, However, this is a new injury which occurred at home on 8/10/11 and is covered under my unions short term disability covereage carerier.
Hello,If I understand your situation correctly, you have two different injuries here. One is a WC related injury and one is a non-work related injury. I can't really address the specifics of either since I just don't have the facts, including those from your doctor's, employer's and attorney's perspectives. I can tell you what you need to do to determine whether or not this is a good idea for you to attend this schooling and whether or not it is allowed. You must first really think about the work and the training and whether it will be something that will conflict with what the doctor says your limitations are. If it is going to conflict, then you could lose both your WC claim and your disability coverage since you would apparently not need either if you can do the same or substantially similar work. For example, if one of your limitations is that you cannot lift anything over 20 pounds or stand for protracted periods and your nurse training would require both, then that is a conflict and could cause you problems with your disability or WC claim and you could lose your job because of that. In addition, if your bargaining agreement would not allow this sort of activity, which you will need to ask the union about, then you couldn't do it without risking Termination. Finally, just to be clear, your disability claim is a insurance contract. Therefore, you must read the terms of that policy to ensure you know what actions you can or cannot take.
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Relist: Answer quality.needed more info which I did not get
Hello again,There was absolutely nothing wrong with the quality of my answer. I am not a mindreader or otherwise omniscient and it would be irresponsible for me to stab in the dark. It wouldn't help you at all. I covered what the legal considerations are in your decision and that is exactly what we do here. If you have follow up questions, then they are welcome and I will do my best to address them with the limited information that I have. Otherwise, the received a very comprehensive and correct analysis of the issue based on the information you provided.