Temporary Total Disability

Ohio Revised Code Section 4123.56(A) provides for payment of an award called temporary total disability (T.T. or TT). The temporary total award provides compensation for the injured worker's loss of earnings while healing from the injury.

An injured worker is eligible for temporary total disability if they are not capable of performing the work they were doing when injured, as long as they have not abandoned their employment and one of the conditions for terminating temporary total set forth in R.C. 4123.56(A) are not present.

Temporary total may be terminated where

1. the employee has returned to work;
   
   
2. the employee's physician has made a written statement that the employee can return to the former position of employment;
   
   
3. employment within the employee's physical capabilities is made available; or
   
   
4. the employee reaches maximum medical improvement.

To see the maximum and minimum rates for temporary total awards from 1990 to the present, click here.

For summaries of temporary total decisions by Ohio Courts, with links to the cases, click here.

Other information:

• Court: The Supreme Court has ruled that an employer's decision to fire an employee does not bar temporary total when the firing was because of the industrial injury.  (May, 2007)
  
  
• Court: An injured worker who has received a permanent partial payment can also receive an award for temporary total for the same condition, covering the same time period.  (December, 2005)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has ruled in a case that an employer cannot avoid the responsibility to pay temporary total to an employee by firing them for forgetting to list a previous job on their job application.   (October, 2005)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has ruled that eligibility for wage loss compenation does not justify a self-insurer's decision to terminate temporary total. (May, 2004)
  
  
• Court: A Court of Appeals has found that an injured worker who performs unpaid charitable activities remains eligible for temporary total.  (March, 2004)
  
  
• Court:  A Court of Appeals' decision found that an injured worker who was fired because of absenteeism resulting from the industrial injury remained entitled to receive temporary total. (January, 2004)
  
  
• Court: A Court of Appeals' decision found that an injured worker who was replaced after participating in a lawful strike remained entitled to temporary total.  (January, 2004)
  
  
• Court: An injured worker who has voluntarily abandoned his employment regains eligibility for temporary total after returning to work part-time.  (December, 2003)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has found that an employer cannot fire an employee for absenteeism if the reason for the absence is a period of temporary total disability as a result of an industrial injury.   (November, 2003)
  
  
• Court: According to the Supreme Court, the only medical evidence necessary for temporary total is evidence that the inability to return to work is due to the allowed conditions.  The claimant is not required to prove that there are no other disabling conditions.  (August, 2002)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has upheld an Industrial Commission decision to award temporary total to a claimant who earned rental income from properties he owned. (June, 2002)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has ruled that a worker does not lose the right to temporary total when they suffer a "flare-up" of a condition after they have returned to different employment.  This decision clarifies the application of the "abandonment" doctrine to temporary total compensation. (November, 2002)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has held that an injured worker who is engaged in non-paying activities in a workplace is not barred from receiving temporary total where the activities engaged in are consistent with the injured worker's physical restriction against performing their former employment. (June, 2002)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has decided two cases which make it clear that an injured worker who has not abandoned the job market remains eligible for temporary total, whatever their reason was for leaving their job of injury. (October, 2001)
  
  
• Court: Supreme Court rules that temporary total eligibility is lost only when an injured worker voluntarily abandons the entire job market. (May, 2001)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has issued its new decision in State, ex rel. Baker v. Indus. Comm. The new decision holds that an injured worker remains eligible for temporary total after leaving the job they had been doing when injured to work at a different job. (September 2000)
  
  
• Court: Supreme Court Denies temporary total when Injured Worker Fired Pursuant to Employer's Drug Policy. (April 2000)
  
  
• Court: Supreme Court grants reconsideration in Baker case, which held that an injured worker who leaves the job of injury may forfeit eligibility for future temporary total. (March 2000)
  
  
• Court: Supreme Court Rules Leaving Employment of Injury for Better (or Different) Job May Bar Temporary total. (March 2000)
  
  
• Court: The Supreme Court has decided that where a treating doctor explains an ambiguous report (and indicates that the injured workers' condition remains temporary total), that report cannot be used to support a finding of maximum medical improvement. (March, 1999)
  
  
• Administrative: Commission Issues New Resolution applying Russell decision, which declared Commission Temporary Total Overpayment Policy Invalid. (August, 1998)
  
  
• Court: Supreme Court Declares Commission Temporary Total Overpayment Policy (which involved retroactive finding of MMI) Invalid. (August, 1998)