Serious Work Injuries and Workers’ Compensation in Wisconsin

When a workplace injury is severe, the workers’ compensation claim behind it changes character. The medical care runs longer, the impairment is permanent, the dollars at stake climb, and the insurer has far more reason to fight. Serious-injury claims are where the gap between what the law allows and what actually gets paid can be widest — not because the law is stingy, but because the full value of a severe injury has to be built, proven, and pressed. Mays Law Office represents seriously injured workers throughout Wisconsin, and attorney Lisa Pierobon Mays has handled these claims for more than 25 years.

What makes a workers’ comp case “serious”

Wisconsin’s Chapter 102 does not stamp a claim “serious.” In practice, four things do.

The first is permanent disability. Once you reach maximum medical improvement — the point where your condition has stabilized — a physician may assign a permanent impairment. An injury that leaves lasting restrictions, a permanency rating, or the need for a joint replacement is no longer a routine, heal-and-return claim. It carries lifetime consequences, and the law treats it accordingly.

The second is life-changing treatment. Spinal surgery, an amputation, a brain injury, a disc or knee or hip or shoulder replacement, or years of ongoing care all signal a claim whose medical and wage exposure is large.

The third is disputed causation. The more a diagnosis rests on how the injury happened — a single traumatic event versus a pre-existing condition, or a disease that built over years of exposure — the more room an insurer has to contest whether the injury even qualifies. To be compensable in Wisconsin, an injury must arise out of and in the course of employment, and every benefit depends on that threshold being met.

The fourth is benefit exposure. When permanent disability, long treatment, and a possible lifetime of lost earning power stack up, the amount the insurer may ultimately owe grows — and so does its incentive to hold the line. Serious cases are, by definition, the expensive ones.

The benefit stakes in a severe injury

For a badly hurt worker, the difference between the categories of benefits is the difference between a small check and a claim that provides for years.

While you are healing and wholly off work, Temporary Total Disability (TTD) pays two-thirds of your average weekly wage, up to a maximum that changes by injury year. For injuries in 2025 that ceiling is $1,326 per week; for injuries on or after January 1, 2026, it rises to $1,375 per week. (The first three days of disability, not counting Sundays unless you normally work them, go unpaid unless the disability lasts beyond seven calendar days or the injury causes permanent disability.) If you return to lighter or reduced-hour work and earn less, Temporary Partial Disability covers a share of the wage gap instead.

When the injury leaves lasting impairment, Permanent Partial Disability (PPD) applies — and the body part matters. Scheduled injuries to the arms, hands, legs, feet, or your vision and hearing pay a percentage of a set number of statutory weeks tied to your functional loss. Unscheduled injuries to the back, spine, or head are judged on a whole-person or earning-capacity basis, measured against a 1,000-week base. The maximum PPD rate is $446 per week in 2025, rising to $454 per week effective April 1, 2026.

A worked example. For scheduled injuries, Wis. Stat. § 102.52 sets a number of weeks for each loss, and Wis. Stat. § 102.55(3) pays a partial loss as the same percentage of those weeks. The weekly rate is two-thirds of your average weekly earnings, up to the maximum for your date of injury: $446 for injuries from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026, and $454 for injuries from April 1, 2026 through December 31, 2026 (Wis. Stat. § 102.11(1); DWD rate chart WKC-9572-P). Here is the arithmetic for a shoulder injury, which starts from the same example DWD’s guide for injured workers uses:

• Schedule value: the loss of an arm at the shoulder is 500 weeks (Wis. Stat. § 102.52(1)), an entry Wisconsin courts have read to include injuries to the shoulder (Hagen v. LIRC, 1997).
• Rating: after the healing period, the practitioner rates the permanent disability at 10 percent at the shoulder.
• Weeks: 10% × 500 weeks = 50 weeks.
• Rate: a worker injured on or after April 1, 2026 whose average weekly wage was $681 or more is paid at the $454 maximum.
• Result: 50 weeks × $454 = $22,700, paid in addition to the benefits for the healing period (DWD’s guide notes that these benefits are paid monthly, not in one lump sum). For a 2025 injury, the same rating at the $446 maximum comes to $22,300.

Other schedule entries include 450 weeks for an arm at the elbow, 400 for a hand, 500 for a leg at the hip joint, 425 for a leg at the knee, 250 for a foot at the ankle and 250 for total impairment of one eye for industrial use. When one injury causes more than one permanent disability, the weeks for each additional equal or lesser disability increase, and when an injury to the dominant hand causes one of the hand or arm disabilities in the schedule, its weeks increase by 25 percent (Wis. Stat. §§ 102.53, 102.54). Unscheduled injuries are measured against 1,000 weeks instead, so a 10 percent rating for a back injury equals 100 weeks (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(3)). DWD sets minimum ratings for amputations, losses of motion, sensory losses and surgeries (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(4m)); under 2025 Wisconsin Act 145, a repeat of the same surgery on the same limb is rated by the health care providers rather than by adding those minimums together, and never below the rating for the first procedure (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(4o)). This is arithmetic, not a prediction: your rating, wage and injury date control the real figure.

For the most catastrophic injuries — those that permanently end a worker’s ability to earn a living — Permanent Total Disability (PTD) pays at the TTD rate for life. This is the category with the largest lifetime value, and it is precisely the category insurers scrutinize hardest.

How permanent total disability is decided. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.44(2), the benefit is figured at a weekly rate and continues for as long as the worker lives, and some losses are permanent total disability by law: total impairment for industrial use of both eyes, the loss of both arms at or near the shoulder, the loss of both legs at or near the hip, or the loss of one arm at the shoulder and one leg at the hip. That list is not exclusive; in other cases DWD finds the facts. Wisconsin also follows the “odd-lot” doctrine: a worker who shows that, because of the injury together with age, education and capacity, they cannot secure continuing gainful employment shifts part of the burden to the employer, which must then show that the worker is probably employable and that an actual, suitable job is regularly and continuously available (Balczewski v. DILHR, 1977; Beecher v. LIRC, 2004; Cargill Feed Division v. LIRC, 2010). The worker still carries the burden on the rest of the claim. The weekly maximum is the same as for temporary total disability: $1,375 for injuries in 2026 and $1,326 for injuries in 2025 (DWD WKC-9572-P). For injuries on or after January 1, 2026, the weekly amount is raised on the sixth anniversary of the injury and each year after that, in step with the maximum rate then in effect, unless a suspension under the statute applies (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(2)(a)2 to 4).

If a worker dies from a work injury or occupational disease, eligible dependents may receive death benefits, generally capped at four times the worker’s average annual wage, plus a burial allowance of up to $10,000.

Throughout, reasonable and necessary medical treatment is covered in full, and you are reimbursed for mileage to and from appointments at 51 cents per mile. Every one of these benefits is conditional on a compensable claim — one that arises out of and in the course of employment.

When someone other than your employer caused the injury

Workers’ compensation does not stop you from pursuing a negligent outsider, such as another driver, an independent contractor or the maker of defective equipment. Workers’ compensation remains the only remedy against your employer, its insurer and, with narrow exceptions such as an intentional assault, your coworkers (Wis. Stat. § 102.03(2)). Under Wis. Stat. § 102.29(1)(a), making a workers’ compensation claim does not affect your right to bring that “third-party” claim, and bringing it does not affect your right to workers’ compensation. This matters most after a serious injury, because workers’ compensation pays nothing for pain and suffering and a third-party claim can seek it. Once your employer or its insurer has paid or owes workers’ compensation for the injury, it has the same right to pursue the third party, and each side must give the other notice and a chance to join.

If the claim produces a recovery, the statute divides it in a fixed order (Wis. Stat. § 102.29(1)(b)): first the reasonable cost of collection, including attorney fees; then one-third of the remainder to you in any event; then reimbursement to the employer or insurer for workers’ compensation it has paid or will owe, other than certain penalty payments; and any balance to you. A settlement is void unless it and the division of the money are approved by the court handling the lawsuit or, if no lawsuit is pending, by a court of record or DWD (Wis. Stat. § 102.29(1)(d)). Some workers who can claim workers’ compensation also cannot sue the business that accepted their services, including many employees of temporary help agencies, leased employees and loaned employees, as the statute defines them (Wis. Stat. § 102.29(6), (6m) and (7)).

Why serious cases get fought the hardest

The bigger the exposure, the harder the claim tends to be contested. A few dispute patterns recur in severe cases.

The independent medical examination. The insurer has the right to require you to attend an Independent Medical Examination (IME) with a doctor it selects, to assess your treatment, the extent of your disability, and whether you have reached a healing plateau. When that examiner’s opinion differs from your treating doctor’s — a lower impairment rating, a shorter healing period, a different cause — the conflict has to be resolved through the hearing process. In a serious claim, the IME opinion is often the wedge the insurer uses to pay less. You are entitled to keep your own treating physician (subject to the statute’s limits on the number of free choices), and the insurer must pay your necessary expenses, including transportation, before the exam and give you a copy of the report (Wis. Stat. § 102.13(1)(b)).

Aggravation and pre-existing disputes. Where a worker had an earlier condition, the insurer may argue the current problem is not work-related at all, or that the job merely revealed something already there. These arguments are common in back, neck, and joint cases. They are dispute patterns, not legal conclusions — how they come out depends on the medical evidence a claim is built on.

Vocational and earning-capacity fights. For an unscheduled permanent injury that keeps a worker from returning to their prior job, the real value often lives in the loss-of-earning-capacity analysis — what the injury did to the ability to earn, weighed against age, education, work history, and restrictions, against that 1,000-week base. This analysis usually enters a claim when the worker’s side builds it, typically with a vocational expert. It does not get raised automatically.

The 15 percent rule if you return to the same employer. Wisconsin limits loss-of-earning-capacity claims once you are back at work for the employer you worked for when you were hurt. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.44(6)(a), the permanent disability award is then based on your physical limitations alone, without regard to loss of earning capacity, unless your actual wage loss, compared with your earnings at the time of injury, is 15 percent or more. Wage loss is figured on actual average wages over at least 13 weeks (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(6)(f)). If you refuse a good-faith job offer from that employer without reasonable cause, you are treated as if you had returned to work at the wage you would have earned (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(6)(g)).

The award can be revisited. If, during the period set by Wis. Stat. § 102.17(4), your time-of-injury employer ends your employment, you leave because your physical or mental limitations prevent you from continuing, or a wage loss of 15 percent or more occurs, DWD may reopen the award and redetermine it taking loss of earning capacity into account (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(6)(b)). Loss of earning capacity applies to unscheduled injuries, such as the back, neck or head; Wisconsin courts have held that it may not be awarded for scheduled injuries to the limbs, eyes or hearing (Langhus v. LIRC, 1996). When you claim it, the employer or insurer may require, on written request, an examination by a vocational expert it provides and pays for (Wis. Stat. § 102.13(1)(am)).

The deadlines that can decide a serious claim

Timing governs Wisconsin workers’ compensation, and in a serious case the clock deserves attention from day one.

You have 30 days to report a work injury to your employer. A late report can be excused if the employer was not misled by the delay.

The deadline to formally pursue a claim depends on the injury. Most single-event traumatic injuries carry a six-year statute of limitations for injuries occurring on or after March 2, 2016. That period runs from the date of injury or the last payment of compensation, whichever is later (payments for medical treatment or burial don’t count). An occupational disease that develops over time has no statute of limitations.

For the most severe injuries, the picture changes again: certain catastrophic injuries carry no statute of limitations. If you were told an older serious injury is “too late,” that may simply be wrong — it is worth having reviewed.

Injuries with no statute of limitations

Wis. Stat. § 102.17(4)(b) sets no statute of limitations for:

• an occupational disease;
• a traumatic injury that results in the loss or total impairment of a hand or any part of the arm above it, or of a foot or any part of the leg above it;
• a traumatic injury that results in any loss of vision or any permanent brain injury; and
• a traumatic injury that causes the need for an artificial spinal disc, a total or partial knee or hip replacement, a shoulder replacement or a reverse shoulder replacement. Shoulder and reverse shoulder replacements were added by 2025 Wisconsin Act 145, effective April 1, 2026.

No statute of limitations does not mean no rules. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.12, if nothing other than medical treatment or burial expenses has been paid and no application is filed with DWD within two years after the injury, or after you knew or ought to have known its nature and its relation to your work, the claim is barred unless your employer knew or should have known of the injury within that two-year period. The 30-day notice rule described above still applies as well, though a late report can be excused if the employer was not misled by the delay.

How Wisconsin hearings work now

If the insurer denies liability, it must tell you in writing why, and advise you of your right to a hearing. You contest a denial by filing a Hearing Application (Form WKC-7) — after DWD’s informal process if you have no attorney — which also keeps the statute of limitations from expiring while the case is pending, though it adds no time afterward: the period ends at the final disposition of the case or at its original expiration date, whichever is later, and the clock continues to run if the application is dismissed without prejudice.

Since January 1, 2026, these disputes are handled by the Worker’s Compensation Division at the Department of Workforce Development (DWD), whose administrative law judges hear the cases. Any party may ask for a mediation conference with an administrative law judge, which DWD may schedule once all other parties agree in writing (Wis. Admin. Code DWD 80.16); if the case does not settle and the claim is ready for hearing, DWD may schedule a formal hearing, with sworn testimony and cross-examination. A party unhappy with the decision can petition the Labor and Industry Review Commission for review, and DWD or the commission must receive the petition within 21 days after DWD mails the decision; a LIRC ruling can then be taken to circuit court — by filing and serving a summons and complaint — within 30 days of the commission’s order.

Hearings are held at seven locations statewide — Madison, Milwaukee, Appleton, Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse, and Wausau — and DWD says hearings are generally held near the municipality of the applicant’s residence, so a serious claim from anywhere in the state is generally heard within reach.

The attorney behind these claims

Lisa Pierobon Mays has devoted her career to Wisconsin injured workers, concentrating exclusively on workers’ compensation for more than 25 years. She was admitted to the Wisconsin bar in 1995 and earned her J.D. from Thomas M. Cooley Law School cum laude. She served on the Wisconsin Association of Workers’ Compensation Attorneys Board of Directors for District 7 from 2001 to 2025 — a credential that reflects a career built inside this practice area. In serious-injury cases, that experience means building the earning-capacity record, answering the insurer’s examiner with your treating doctor’s evidence, and pressing the claim through hearing rather than accepting the insurer’s first number. Read more on Lisa Pierobon Mays’s full bio, or start with our workers’ compensation overview.

Lisa Pierobon Mays: credentials at a glance

• Concentrates her practice on workers’ compensation for the Wisconsin injured worker, with more than twenty-five years of experience.
• Admitted to practice in Wisconsin in 1995, in the U.S. District Courts for the Eastern and Western Districts of Wisconsin in 1996, and in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit in 1999.
• J.D., cum laude, Thomas M. Cooley Law School, 1995; member of the National Moot Court Team.
• B.A., cum laude, University of Michigan, 1991.
• WAWCA Board of Directors, District 7, 2001 to 2025.
• Member of the Wisconsin State Bar since 1995 and of the Dane County Bar Association.
• Directly involved in each case from start to finish, and communicates directly with her clients.

Lisa’s results in serious and disputed claims

Three of Lisa’s cases, as the firm’s own case reports describe them:

• A permanent total disability claim, settled before hearing (2024). A diesel mechanic with more than 16 years at a small Wisconsin municipality was pinned when a 500-pound mower fell off its lift, leaving a pelvic fracture and urological injuries. The insurer paid some benefits, cut him off, and offered a minimal settlement for his lower earning capacity. Lisa worked with his doctors on a permanent total disability claim and hired a vocational rehabilitation expert. Before the scheduled May 2024 hearing, the insurer agreed to settle for more than five times its original offer, with a large portion placed in an annuity that pays monthly, guaranteed until summer 2044 and for his lifetime after that. Read S.S.’s case.
• A win at hearing against a records-review opinion. A heavy-equipment mechanic had two carpal tunnel surgeries, and the insurer’s examiner, working from a review of records, found his forearm pain unrelated to work and his hands without disability. With a supporting report from his neurologist, Lisa took the claim to hearing. The administrative law judge credited the neurologist and awarded permanent partial disability to both hands and elbows/forearms, his lost-time benefits, and his medical treatment and mileage, with retraining left for a later hearing. Read A.H.’s case.
• Penalties after a late settlement payment (2023). After a judge approved R.S.’s settlement of a shoulder-injury claim, the insurer paid after the 21-day deadline in the order had passed. Lisa filed delay-in-payment and bad-faith penalty claims; the insurer accepted the 10% delay-in-payment penalty on the amounts owed under the order and then settled the bad-faith claim. Read R.S.’s case.

Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome. Every claim turns on its own facts and medical evidence.

Questions about serious work injury claims

Which Wisconsin work injuries have no statute of limitations?

Under Wis. Stat. § 102.17(4)(b), there is no statute of limitations for an occupational disease, or for a traumatic injury that results in the loss or total impairment of a hand or any part of the arm above it, or of a foot or any part of the leg above it, any loss of vision or any permanent brain injury, or that causes the need for an artificial spinal disc, a total or partial knee or hip replacement, a shoulder replacement or a reverse shoulder replacement. The shoulder replacements were added by 2025 Wisconsin Act 145, effective April 1, 2026. A separate rule in Wis. Stat. § 102.12 still applies: if nothing but medical or burial expenses has been paid and no application is filed within two years after the injury (or after you knew or ought to have known it was work-related), the claim is barred unless your employer knew or should have known of the injury within that time.

How is permanent partial disability calculated in Wisconsin?

For a scheduled injury, multiply the weeks Wis. Stat. § 102.52 assigns to the body part by your disability rating, then by your weekly rate: two-thirds of your average weekly wage, up to the maximum for your injury date. The loss of an arm at the shoulder is 500 weeks, so a 10 percent rating at the shoulder equals 50 weeks. For an injury on or after April 1, 2026, the maximum rate is $454 a week, so a worker paid at the maximum receives 50 weeks × $454 = $22,700, in addition to benefits for the healing period. The maximum is $446 for injuries from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026. Unscheduled injuries, such as the back, are measured against 1,000 weeks instead.

What is permanent total disability in Wisconsin?

Permanent total disability benefits are figured at a weekly rate and continue for as long as you live (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(2)). The law treats some losses as permanent total disability automatically, including total impairment of both eyes for industrial use and the loss of both arms at or near the shoulder, but that list is not exclusive. In other cases DWD decides on the facts, including whether the injury, together with your age, education and capacity, leaves you unable to secure continuing gainful employment. The weekly maximum is the same as for temporary total disability: $1,375 for injuries in 2026 and $1,326 for injuries in 2025. For injuries on or after January 1, 2026, the weekly amount can increase each year starting on the sixth anniversary of the injury.

Can I claim loss of earning capacity if I go back to work for the same employer?

Not unless your actual wage loss is 15 percent or more. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.44(6)(a), once you are back at work for the employer you worked for when you were hurt, your permanent disability award is based on your physical limitations alone unless your wage loss, compared with your earnings at the time of injury, is 15 percent or more. DWD may reopen the award later if that employer ends your employment, if you leave because your physical or mental limitations prevent you from continuing, or if a wage loss of 15 percent or more occurs during the period set by Wis. Stat. § 102.17(4). Loss of earning capacity applies to unscheduled injuries such as the back or neck, not to scheduled injuries.

Can I sue someone other than my employer for a work injury?

Often, yes, if someone outside your employer caused the injury, such as a negligent driver, an independent contractor or the maker of defective equipment. Wis. Stat. § 102.29 lets you bring that third-party claim while you receive workers’ compensation, and it can seek damages workers’ comp does not pay, such as pain and suffering. Workers’ compensation is the only remedy against your employer, its insurer and, with narrow exceptions, your coworkers (Wis. Stat. § 102.03(2)), and many temporary-agency, leased and loaned workers cannot sue the business that accepted their services. After the reasonable cost of collection, you receive one-third of the remainder in any event; the employer or insurer is then reimbursed for workers’ compensation it has paid or owes, apart from certain penalty payments, and any balance goes to you. A settlement must be approved by the court handling the lawsuit or, if no lawsuit is pending, by a court of record or DWD.

Does Wisconsin workers’ comp pay for pain and suffering?

No. Wisconsin workers’ compensation pays for medical treatment and pays benefits for lost wages, permanent disability and death under Chapter 102 of the Wisconsin Statutes, but it pays nothing for pain and suffering. When someone other than your employer caused the injury, a separate third-party claim under Wis. Stat. § 102.29 can seek damages such as pain and suffering.

Do I have to go to the insurance company’s doctor?

Generally yes, if the employer or insurer asks in writing for a reasonable exam and the request gives the notice the statute requires. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.13(1), you must submit to reasonable examinations by a practitioner the employer or insurer provides and pays for, often called an independent medical examination (IME), and, if you claim loss of earning capacity, to an examination by a vocational expert. Your necessary expenses, including transportation, must be paid to you before the exam. You may bring your own practitioner, one observer and, if you have difficulty speaking or understanding English, your own translator, and you are entitled to copies of the reports as soon as the insurer receives them. If you refuse or obstruct an exam that was properly requested, your right to pursue the claim is suspended while that lasts, and if you refuse after DWD or a judge directs you to attend, or obstruct the exam, weekly benefits for that period are lost (Wis. Stat. § 102.13(1)(c)).

What does a lawyer cost for a serious workers’ comp claim?

The fee is capped by Wis. Stat. § 102.26(2): generally no more than 20 percent of the disputed amount recovered, or no more than 10 percent, up to $250, when liability is admitted, the amount due is not disputed and no hearing or appeal is needed. DWD approves the fee. In permanent total disability cases, no fee is allowed on compensation due beyond 500 weeks (Wis. Admin. Code § DWD 80.43(3)). DWD’s hearing instructions add that if the lawyer gets nothing for you, you owe no fee for the lawyer’s time, though actual costs such as charges for medical reports may be charged.

Talk to an attorney about a serious work injury

If a severe work injury has left you facing permanent restrictions, surgery, or a claim the insurer is fighting, the sooner the record is built the better. Mays Law Office is based in Middleton and represents seriously injured workers throughout Wisconsin — including in the Madison and Milwaukee areas and every community in between. Workers hurt in Janesville, Oshkosh, Sheboygan, Kenosha, La Crosse or Appleton can start with our local workers’ compensation page for their city. Consultations are free, and Se Habla Español. Call 608-305-4518 or reach us through our contact page to have your claim reviewed.

This page describes rights and benefits under Wisconsin law. It is not legal advice and does not guarantee any particular result. Whether benefits are owed depends on the facts of a compensable claim.