Mays Law Office · Updated October 2026

For a compensable De Pere work injury, Wisconsin workers’ compensation pays reasonable and necessary medical care from day one. Wage benefits start after a three-day wait that skips Sundays unless you work Sundays; those days are paid if you are off more than seven days or left with permanent disability. Notify your employer of the injury within 30 days.

Under Wis. Stat. § 102.12, that deadline runs from the injury or from the day you knew or ought to have known the nature of the disability and its relation to your work, and a late report does not bar recovery if your employer was not misled. If the insurer has denied the claim or stopped your checks, call 608-305-4518 for a free consultation.

Work and Injuries in Brown County

About one in ten of De Pere’s employed residents works in health care, and nearly one in twenty in construction and extraction, the occupational group that includes the building trades. The Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 American Community Survey, which sorts the city’s 13,583 employed residents by the work they do wherever their jobs are, puts health care practitioners, technicians and support staff at 10.6 percent, production at 8.1 percent, transportation and material moving at 5.9 percent and construction and extraction at 4.8 percent. Statewide, those four shares are 10.1, 9.2, 8.1 and 4.5 percent; countywide, 10.3, 9.8, 7.9 and 4.0 percent.

Construction jobs in the county grew in 2025. The Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2025 county employment figures count 8,299 private construction jobs in Brown County, 372 more than in 2024, a 4.7 percent rise. About seven in ten of them, 5,798, are with trade contractors, including 3,134 at electrical, plumbing, heating and air-conditioning and other building-equipment contractors; firms that put up houses and other buildings account for 1,723 jobs and heavy and civil engineering construction for 778.

In the same BLS figures, construction is Brown County’s fifth-largest private sector, with 5.8 percent of its 143,373 private-sector jobs. Manufacturing leads with 29,386 jobs, or 20.5 percent, compared with 17.9 percent of private-sector jobs statewide, and health care and social assistance (24,451), retail trade (15,414) and accommodation and food services (12,684) complete the five largest.

Brown County at a glance

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), Brown County, 2025 annual averages. Shares are percentages of 143,373 private-sector jobs.

Construction injuries are often sudden and serious: falls from roofs, ladders and scaffolds, electric shocks and burns, workers struck by falling materials or equipment, and trench collapses. The trades also wear bodies down, from knees that kneel on floors all day to shoulders that work overhead and backs that carry shingles, block and pipe. Health care workers hurt backs and shoulders moving patients; factory work brings crush injuries, cuts and repetitive-motion conditions; and warehouse, store and restaurant jobs bring strains, falls, cuts and burns.

A building project also puts several companies’ crews, suppliers and sometimes staffing-agency workers on one site. If a company or person other than your employer or a co-worker causes the injury, you may have a claim against that party too, and making it does not affect your right to workers’ compensation (Wis. Stat. § 102.29(1)); the first question below explains the limits.

Across Brown County, 6.6 percent of residents age 5 and older speak Spanish at home, above Wisconsin’s 4.9 percent, against 1.9 percent in De Pere itself, the same Census Bureau survey shows. The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) publishes its guide for injured workers in Spanish and Hmong, and se habla español at Mays Law Office.

If a De Pere Claim Is Disputed

Contested claims have been decided within DWD since January 1, 2026, when 2025 Wisconsin Act 33 returned workers’ compensation hearings to its Worker’s Compensation Division, where administrative law judges hear them. A worker without a lawyer starts in the informal process: staff of the Division’s Alternative Dispute Resolution Unit identify the disputed issues, check that the medical information supports the claim and contact you and the insurer if they think it can be resolved without a formal hearing.

If that does not resolve it, you may request a formal hearing on Form WKC-7, filed with a medical report that supports the claim, usually Form WKC-16-B; DWD will not schedule the hearing before that medical support arrives, and a represented worker’s lawyer must also file a Certification of Readiness.

Any party may also ask DWD to schedule a mediation conference, conducted by an administrative law judge, to discuss a mutually agreeable resolution without a formal hearing; DWD may schedule one once the other parties confirm their agreement in writing (Wis. Admin. Code § DWD 80.16). DWD reports that about 80 percent of hearing requests settle without a formal hearing, many by compromise, which needs DWD’s approval and, under its written terms, can give up some or all future benefits.

DWD holds hearings at seven locations, in Madison, Milwaukee, Appleton, Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse and Wausau, and states that they are generally held near the municipality of the applicant’s residence. The nearest to De Pere is Green Bay, where DWD lists its location as 6th floor, Room 622, 200 N. Jefferson St., Green Bay, WI 54301. Your written notice gives the place, date and time and must be served or mailed at least 10 days ahead (Wis. Stat. § 102.17(1)(a)2); DWD schedules hearings only by written letter, so check any call, text or email about one with the Division.

Filing the application stops the limitation period while the case is pending, though never past the later of its final disposition or the date the period would otherwise have ended, and the period keeps running after an order dismissing the application without prejudice (§ 102.17(4)(a)1). To have the judge’s decision reviewed, a party petitions the Labor and Industry Review Commission, and the commission or DWD must receive the petition within 21 days after DWD mails the decision; a late one is dismissed unless the petitioner shows it was late for a reason beyond the petitioner’s control (§ 102.18(3)). A party aggrieved by the commission’s order may then start a circuit court action within 30 days of it, by serving a complaint and filing the summons and complaint, with 30 more days possible for a party prejudiced by an exceptional delay in receiving a copy (§ 102.23(1)(a)2); venue follows the plaintiff’s residence, so a worker who lives in Brown County files in the circuit court for Brown County, unless all parties stipulate to another circuit court and it agrees (§ 102.23(1)(a)3).

De Pere Workers’ Comp Questions

Another company’s crew or a defective tool caused my injury on a De Pere job site. Can I sue?

Possibly. Workers’ compensation is generally the only remedy against your employer, its insurer and your co-workers — with narrow exceptions the statute lists, such as a co-worker’s assault intended to cause bodily harm or negligent operation of a motor vehicle not owned or leased by the employer (Wis. Stat. § 102.03(2)), but claiming it does not affect a tort claim against a legally liable third party, such as another contractor or a tool’s maker, unless a temporary-help, leasing or loaned-worker arrangement bars it (§ 102.29(1), (6)–(7)). The insurer may sue too, and each side must give the other notice and a chance to join. From any recovery, the reasonable cost of collection comes off first, one-third of the rest goes to you in any event, the employer or insurer is reimbursed for what it paid or may have to pay later, except certain penalties, and any balance is yours; a court or DWD must approve a settlement and its distribution.

I fell on a job site without the harness my employer provided. Am I still covered?

Not wearing it does not by itself end the claim, because Wisconsin’s system is no-fault. But compensation and death benefits drop 15 percent, by no more than $15,000, if the injury was caused by your failure to use safety devices provided in accordance with a statute, rule or order of the Department of Safety and Professional Services, adequately maintained, and whose use the employer reasonably enforces, or to obey a reasonable safety rule the employer adopted and reasonably enforces and you had notice of (Wis. Stat. § 102.58(1)). Conversely, an injury caused by the employer’s failure to comply with such a statute, rule or order, or to reasonably enforce one among its employees, raises them 15 percent, up to $15,000 (§ 102.57).

My illness from chemicals or dust at a past job showed up after I left. Is it too late?

Not necessarily: an occupational disease claim has no statute of limitations (Wis. Stat. § 102.17(4)(b)), and the disease’s date of injury is the date of disability or, if that comes after all contributing employment has ended, the last day of work for the last employer whose employment caused the disability (§ 102.01(2)(g)2). Two limits remain: notice to the employer within 30 days after you knew or ought to have known the nature of the disability and its relation to your work, and the § 102.12 two-year bar, which can end a claim if nothing beyond medical or burial expenses is paid and no application is filed within two years of either date, unless the employer knew or should have known of the injury in that time.

How does workers’ comp pay for an injury that turns out to be permanent?

Once you have healed as far as you will, your practitioner determines whether a permanent disability remains; permanent partial disability is then paid in addition to your healing-period benefits. Wis. Stat. § 102.52 sets 400 weeks for the loss of a hand and 500 for the loss of an arm at the shoulder, and a partial loss earns a share: in DWD’s example, a 10 percent disability at the shoulder equals 50 weeks. The head, neck and torso are rated as a percentage of the body as a whole. The weeks are paid at two-thirds of your average weekly wage, up to the maximum for your injury date, and monthly rather than in a lump sum, DWD’s guide says.

Does my employer have to hold my job, or take me back, after a work injury?

Not automatically. DWD says an employer does not have to hold a position open or create one once you are released to return to work, but it should offer suitable employment within your physical and mental limitations when that is available. An employer that refuses without reasonable cause to rehire you when suitable work exists may owe the wages lost during the refusal, up to one year’s worth, and a hearing decides whether such work was available (Wis. Stat. § 102.35(3)); the employer’s written rules and the seniority terms of a union contract bear on that question, DWD adds.

What Workers’ Compensation Pays, and When

Maximums follow the injury date (DWD rate chart WKC-9572-P):

• Temporary total disability: two-thirds of your average weekly wage while you heal and the injury keeps you from earning wages, up to $1,326 a week for 2025 injuries and $1,375 for 2026 injuries.
• Permanent partial disability: up to $446 a week for injuries from January 1, 2025 through March 31, 2026, $454 for April 1 through December 31, 2026, and $462 for injuries on or after January 1, 2027 (Wis. Stat. § 102.11(1); 2025 Wisconsin Act 145).
• Medical care: reasonable and necessary treatment from a treating practitioner licensed and practicing in Wisconsin whom you choose — a physician, chiropractor, psychologist, dentist, physician assistant, advanced practice registered nurse or podiatrist — with a second choice on notice to your employer or its insurer; by mutual agreement you may choose a qualified practitioner not licensed in Wisconsin, and in an emergency the employer may arrange treatment first and must offer you the choice at the earliest opportunity afterward (Wis. Stat. § 102.42(2)(a)).

Deadlines:

• Two-year bar: if nothing beyond medical or burial expenses is paid and no application is filed within two years of the injury, or of when you knew or ought to have known its nature and relation to your work, compensation is barred unless your employer knew or should have known of the injury in that time (§ 102.12).
• Six years for most traumatic injuries on or after March 2, 2016, from the latest of the injury, the last payment of compensation other than for treatment or burial, or the date compensation would have been last payable had no advance payment been made (§ 102.17(4)(a)); the two-year bar applies beside it.
• No statute of limitations for occupational disease; for a traumatic injury resulting in the loss or total impairment of a hand or any part of the rest of the arm proximal to the hand, or of a foot or any part of the rest of the leg proximal to the foot, any loss of vision or any permanent brain injury; or for a traumatic injury causing the need for an artificial spinal disc, a total or partial knee or hip replacement or, since the statute’s 2026 amendment, a shoulder or reverse shoulder replacement (§ 102.17(4)(b)). The two-year bar still applies.

If the insurer wants its own practitioner to examine you, it must request a reasonable exam in writing, with the notice § 102.13(1)(b) requires, and tender necessary expenses, including transportation, in advance; you may bring your own practitioner, one observer and, if you have difficulty with English, a translator you provide, and you get copies of the reports.

Lawyer fees are capped by Wis. Stat. § 102.26(2) and approved by DWD: generally 20 percent of the amount awarded, collected or agreed in a compromise, or 10 percent, at most $250, when liability is admitted, the amount due is undisputed and no hearing or appeal is needed. See our guides to filing a claim, handling a denial, how fees are set and serious injuries.

Who Handles Your De Pere Claim

Your De Pere claim would be handled by Attorney Lisa Pierobon Mays, who concentrates her practice on workers’ compensation for injured Wisconsin workers and has more than 25 years of experience representing them. She has been a member of the Wisconsin bar since 1995, the year she earned her J.D. cum laude at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, and from 2001 to 2025 she sat on the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Association of Worker’s Compensation Attorneys as its District 7 director. See the pages for Attorney Lisa Pierobon Mays and our Wisconsin workers’ compensation practice.

Mays Law Office represents injured workers across Wisconsin, De Pere included, from its office in Middleton. Call 608-305-4518 or use our contact page; once the office has your information, Attorney Mays calls you back for a free consultation. Se habla español.

Workers’ Comp Help Near De Pere

Working in one of the cities around De Pere? Start with its page:

• workers’ compensation claims in Green Bay
• injured workers in Kaukauna
• Appleton workers’ comp help
• workers’ compensation claims in Menasha
• workers’ compensation claims in Manitowoc

Our guides to filing a claim and to serious injuries go further:

• how to file a workers’ compensation claim in Wisconsin
• serious and permanent work injuries