If you were hurt on the job in Fitchburg, Wisconsin’s workers’ compensation law is supposed to cover your medical care and replace part of your lost wages, without requiring you to prove that your employer did anything wrong. The benefits still are not automatic. Deadlines can start running the day you are hurt, the insurer may investigate before it pays, and a denial letter names a reason and your right to a hearing, not how to win one.

Mays Law Office represents injured workers throughout Wisconsin from our office in Middleton, also in Dane County. Our workers’ compensation cases are handled by Attorney Lisa Pierobon Mays, who is directly involved from start to finish. Call 608-305-4518 for a free consultation before you give a recorded statement, sign a settlement, or accept a denial.

Workers’ Compensation Attorney Serving Fitchburg, WI

Attorney Lisa Pierobon Mays concentrates her practice on workers’ compensation for Wisconsin’s injured workers and has more than 25 years of experience. She was admitted to the Wisconsin bar in 1995 after earning her J.D. cum laude from Thomas M. Cooley Law School, and she served on the Board of Directors of the Wisconsin Association of Workers’ Compensation Attorneys for District 7 from 2001 to 2025. She is a member of the State Bar of Wisconsin and the Dane County Bar Association.

That background matters because much of a workers’ compensation claim turns on paperwork: how your average weekly wage is calculated, how a permanent impairment is rated, and whether your doctor’s opinion clearly ties the injury to your work. We start checking those details in the first conversation.

When to Call a Fitchburg Workers’ Comp Lawyer

Not every claim needs a lawyer on day one. These situations usually do:

• Your claim was denied, or the insurer says the injury did not happen at work.
• Your wage-loss checks are late, stopped without explanation, or seem lower than they should be.
• The insurer scheduled you for an Independent Medical Examination (IME) with a doctor it chose.
• The insurer says you have reached a healing plateau, but your own doctor has not released you.
• Your condition built up over time, and the insurer blames age or a pre-existing problem.
• Permanent restrictions keep you from going back to the job you had.
• You were offered a settlement before your future medical needs are known.

What Workers’ Compensation Pays in Wisconsin

Wisconsin’s benefits are set by statute, and the date of your injury decides which maximum applies. Workers’ compensation does not pay for pain and suffering. It pays for these:

• Temporary Total Disability (TTD). While you are healing and unable to work, TTD pays two-thirds of your average weekly wage up to a weekly maximum. The Department of Workforce Development (DWD) rate chart lists that maximum as $1,326 for 2025 injuries and $1,375 for injuries on or after January 1, 2026.
• Temporary Partial Disability (TPD). If you go back to lighter or part-time work at lower pay while you heal, TPD replaces part of the wages you lose.
• Permanent Partial Disability (PPD). This covers lasting impairment. Scheduled injuries, to an arm, hand, leg, foot, vision or hearing, pay a percentage of a set number of weeks based on the loss of function. Unscheduled injuries, such as back and spine injuries, are rated against a 1,000-week base in proportion to how disabling the injury is. If you go back to work for the same employer, loss of earning capacity is not considered unless your actual wage loss is 15 percent or more (Wis. Stat. § 102.44(3), (6)). The maximum PPD rate is $446 per week for injuries from January 1, 2025, through March 31, 2026, and $454 for injuries on or after April 1, 2026. Under 2025 Wisconsin Act 145, it rises to $462 for injuries on or after January 1, 2027.
• Permanent Total Disability (PTD). When an injury permanently ends your ability to work, PTD pays at the TTD rate for life.
• Death benefits. Eligible dependents may receive up to four times the worker’s average annual earnings, with a maximum of $397,800 for 2025 injuries and $412,500 for 2026 injuries, plus burial expenses of up to $10,000.
• Medical care. The insurer pays for treatment reasonably required to cure and relieve the effects of the work injury, and for mileage to and from medical appointments. It can dispute whether a particular treatment is necessary, and DWD resolves those disputes.

Deadlines That Can Make or Break Your Claim

These are the deadlines to know:

• Tell your employer within 30 days. Wis. Stat. § 102.12 requires notice within 30 days after the injury, or within 30 days after you knew or ought to have known the nature of the disability and its connection to your job, but a lack of notice does not bar recovery if the employer was not misled by it. If no compensation other than medical or burial expenses has been paid and no claim has been filed within two years, the claim can be barred unless the employer knew or should have known of the injury within those two years.
• Six years for a traumatic injury. For a single-event injury on or after March 2, 2016, the statute of limitations is six years from the injury or from the last payment of wage-loss or disability benefits, whichever is later. Payment of medical bills alone does not extend it.
• No time limit for certain claims. Wis. Stat. § 102.17(4) sets no statute of limitations for an occupational disease, or for a traumatic injury causing the loss or total impairment of a hand, arm, foot or leg, a loss of vision, a permanent brain injury, or the need for an artificial spinal disc or a knee or hip replacement. 2025 Wisconsin Act 145 added shoulder and reverse shoulder replacements to that list.
• A three-day waiting period. Wage-loss benefits are due from the fourth calendar day after you leave work because of the injury, and Sundays do not count unless you normally work them. The first three days are paid too if you are still disabled after the seventh calendar day or the injury causes permanent disability.
• The first check. DWD measures insurers on whether they mail at least 80 percent of first wage-loss payments within 14 days of the injury or the last day worked. That is a performance standard for insurers, not a deadline on your own claim, but an inexcusable delay in paying you can carry a penalty under Wis. Stat. § 102.22.

In short: you report the injury, the insurer investigates, it pays or denies, and a dispute goes to a hearing.

Workers’ Comp in Fitchburg: Local Reality

Fitchburg is a Dane County city on Madison’s border. The City of Fitchburg’s own economic development materials identify five targeted industry clusters: agriculture, bio-science, information technology, medical instrumentation and advanced manufacturing.

Production work can bring sudden injuries such as falls, machine injuries and lifting injuries. Across Wisconsin, private-sector manufacturing recorded 3.4 nonfatal injury and illness cases for every 100 full-time workers in 2024, the same rate as in 2023, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Lab, assembly and computer-based jobs can produce claims that build over time, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and other repetitive-motion conditions, or illness from chemical exposure. Wisconsin covers these as occupational diseases, but insurers sometimes attribute them to age or to something outside work, so the medical history has to connect the condition to the job. Farms have their own coverage threshold: a farm employer becomes subject to the law 10 days after the 20th day in a calendar year on which it employs six or more workers.

A disputed Fitchburg claim enters a hearing system that changed on January 1, 2026, when 2025 Wisconsin Act 33 returned contested cases to DWD. DWD now employs the administrative law judges, may schedule a mediation conference when a party requests one and all other parties agree in writing (Wis. Admin. Code DWD 80.16), and its Worker’s Compensation Division schedules hearings by written notice. Our Middleton office is in Dane County too, and we represent Fitchburg workers throughout that process.

How We Fight Denied Claims

Denials tend to rely on a familiar set of arguments: that the injury did not arise out of and in the course of your employment, that a violation of your employer’s drug or alcohol policy caused it, or that you failed to use a required safety device or follow a reasonable safety rule. Neither of the last two ends the case entirely. A drug or alcohol violation that caused the injury bars compensation and death benefits, but the employer remains liable for medical treatment. If the employer proves the injury was caused by your failure to use a required safety device it provided, maintained and enforced, or to obey a reasonable safety rule it adopted, enforced and told you about, compensation and death benefits are reduced by 15 percent, and the reduction cannot exceed $15,000.

When an insurer denies liability, it must tell you in writing, give the specific reason and advise you of your right to a hearing. From there:

• Application for Hearing. You or your attorney file Form WKC-7 with DWD’s Worker’s Compensation Division. Filing 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. Under 2025 Wisconsin Act 145, the pause adds no time: the deadline becomes the later of the date the case ends or the date it would have expired anyway, so if the original deadline passed while the case was pending, the claim can be barred once the case ends, for example when DWD approves a settlement or dismisses the application without prejudice.
• Mediation or a settlement conference. If a party requests mediation and all other parties agree in writing, an administrative law judge may try to resolve the case before a formal hearing (Wis. Admin. Code DWD 80.16).
• Formal hearing. If the case does not settle and the claim is ready for hearing, an administrative law judge hears witness testimony, including cross-examination, and decides the claim.
• Review by LIRC. A party that disagrees with the decision can petition the Labor and Industry Review Commission. DWD or LIRC must receive the petition within 21 days after DWD mails the decision.
• Circuit court. To challenge a LIRC decision, a party files a summons and complaint in circuit court, naming LIRC and the other required parties, within 30 days after LIRC mails its decision, and LIRC must receive the clerk-stamped, authenticated papers within those 30 days; a postmark is not enough.

Two more protections matter. If an insurer’s failure to pay is the result of malice or bad faith, Wis. Stat. § 102.18(1)(bp) allows the department to award a penalty of up to 200 percent of the compensation due or $30,000 for each occurrence, whichever is less. And when your doctor and the insurer’s IME doctor disagree about cause or rating, the hearing process decides, not the insurer’s examiner.

Building that record, from the medical opinions to the wage records, is the core of our Wisconsin workers’ compensation practice. These are rights the law gives you, not a promise of any particular result.

Fitchburg Workers’ Comp Questions We Hear Most

How much does a workers’ compensation lawyer cost in Wisconsin?

Wisconsin law caps the fee. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.26(2), an attorney’s fee generally cannot exceed 20 percent of the disputed amount that is awarded, collected or agreed to in a settlement, and in a case of admitted liability where the amount owed is not in dispute, it cannot exceed 10 percent and is capped at $250. Fees must be approved by DWD or the administrative law judge, and no fee is allowed on medical expenses that other sources, such as group insurance, are available to pay. Your first consultation with our office is free.

Can I choose my own doctor, or do I have to see the insurer’s?

You choose. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.42(2)(a), you may pick your treating practitioner from among physicians, chiropractors, psychologists, dentists, physician assistants, advanced practice registered nurses and podiatrists licensed and practicing in Wisconsin, and you may make a second choice by notifying your employer or its insurer. A referral from one practitioner to another does not count as a new choice. The insurer can still require an Independent Medical Examination with a practitioner it selects, but it must pay your necessary expenses, including travel, in advance, and you are entitled to a copy of the report. You may have your own practitioner, one observer and, if you have difficulty speaking or understanding English, your own translator present at the exam.

My job in Fitchburg is repetitive, and the pain came on gradually. Is that covered?

It can be, when your work caused it. Wisconsin covers occupational diseases, which are conditions that develop over time from repetitive motion or exposure on the job, such as carpal tunnel syndrome, asthma from chemical exposure or hearing loss. Report it to your employer within 30 days after you know, or ought to know, that the condition is disabling and connected to your job (Wis. Stat. § 102.12). For an occupational disease, the legal date of injury is generally the date of disability, not the day the symptoms began (Wis. Stat. § 102.01(2)(g)). There is no statute of limitations for an occupational disease, but early records make the link to work easier to show.

Can my employer refuse to take me back after a work injury?

Wisconsin law gives you a specific protection. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.35(3), an employer that unreasonably refuses to rehire an injured worker when suitable work is available within the worker’s physical and mental limitations can be ordered to pay the wages lost during the refusal, up to one year’s wages. The employer pays that amount, not its insurance company.

I got an email about a “virtual hearing” on my claim. Is it real?

Be careful. In July 2026, DWD warned that scammers were targeting Spanish-speaking injured workers with fake virtual hearings to collect fees. DWD’s Worker’s Compensation Division schedules hearings only by written letter. Treat any message that asks for money in connection with a hearing as suspicious, and confirm it with the Division directly, or contact our office and we will look at it with you.

Get a Free Consultation

Se Habla Español — Call 608-305-4518

A denial letter, a stopped check or a settlement offer is a good reason to talk with a lawyer before you respond. Call 608-305-4518 or contact Mays Law Office online for a free consultation. We represent injured workers in Fitchburg, across Dane County and throughout Wisconsin from our office at Mays Law Office, LLC — 6405 Century Ave STE 103, Middleton, WI 53562.