Mays Law Office · Updated October 2026

For a compensable work injury in Fond du Lac, Wisconsin workers’ compensation pays reasonable and necessary medical care from day one. Wage benefits start on the fourth day off work, not counting Sundays you don’t work, and cover those days if the disability lasts beyond seven calendar days or permanent disability results. Your employer needs notice within 30 days.

Under Wis. Stat. § 102.12, the 30 days start at the injury or when 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. Claim denied, checks stopped or cut, or an exam set with the insurer’s chosen practitioner? Call 608-305-4518 for a free consultation.

Work and Injuries in Fond du Lac County

Manufacturing employs more people than any other private industry in Fond du Lac County. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ 2025 county employment figures, its 9,688 jobs make up 24.3 percent of the county’s 39,936 private-sector jobs, against 17.9 percent for manufacturing statewide; health care and social assistance, retail trade, accommodation and food services and construction fill out the five largest sectors with published county totals.

Fond du Lac County at a glance

Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages, Fond du Lac County annual averages for 2025; shares are of the county’s 39,936 private-sector jobs. BLS withheld the county’s figures for utilities, transportation and warehousing, finance and insurance, and real estate and rental and leasing for confidentiality.

Machinery is the core of that manufacturing base: the same BLS figures place 5,285 jobs in machinery manufacturing, more than half the county’s manufacturing total, and 1,517 in food manufacturing, including 642 in dairy product manufacturing. They also count 976 private jobs in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, 777 of them in animal production, where cattle ranching and farming accounts for 51 of the 52 establishments.

Counting residents by occupation instead, the Census Bureau’s 2020–2024 American Community Survey finds 14.9 percent of the city’s 21,921 employed residents in production jobs, about one in seven, against 9.2 percent statewide, and 14.1 percent countywide. In the city, 5.2 percent of residents age 5 and older speak Spanish at home (4.9 percent statewide), and 2.1 percent speak Spanish and speak English less than “very well” (1.9 percent statewide).

Each line of work brings its own injuries. Presses, conveyors and assembly lines catch, crush and cut fingers and hands, repetitive gripping wears down wrists, elbows and shoulders, and years of loud equipment can take part of a worker’s hearing; food and dairy plants add slippery floors and knife cuts, caregivers strain backs lifting patients, store and restaurant staff face falls and burns, construction crews fall from ladders and roofs, and farmhands are kicked or pinned by cattle and hurt by tractors.

Fault is not the test: DWD, the Department of Workforce Development, says on its Worker Resources page that an injured worker may receive benefits regardless of who caused or helped cause the injury, while listing no right to benefits for an intentional self-injury, an injury during voluntary participation in an off-duty activity, or horseplay or fighting the injured worker started. Compensation and death benefits can still drop 15 percent, by no more than $15,000, when the injury is caused by the worker’s failure to use safety devices provided under a statute, rule or order of the Department of Safety and Professional Services, adequately maintained and reasonably enforced by the employer, or results from failing to obey a reasonable safety rule the employer adopted and reasonably enforces and the worker had notice of (Wis. Stat. § 102.58(1)). A violation of the employer’s drug or alcohol policy that was causal to the injury bars compensation and death benefits, but the employer still owes medical treatment (§ 102.58(2)).

With narrow exceptions, workers’ compensation is the only remedy against your employer, its insurer and your co-workers (Wis. Stat. § 102.03(2)), but a legally liable outside party, such as the maker of a defective machine, can still be sued; Wis. Stat. § 102.29(1) requires each side to give the other notice and a chance to join that claim, and it sets how any recovery is divided.

If a Fond du Lac Claim Is Disputed

Since January 1, 2026, contested claims have been decided inside DWD: 2025 Wisconsin Act 33 moved workers’ compensation hearings from the Division of Hearings and Appeals to DWD’s Worker’s Compensation Division, whose administrative law judges hear the evidence and decide.

A worker without a lawyer starts in DWD’s informal process: staff of its Alternative Dispute Resolution Unit identify the disputed issues, make sure the medical information supports the claim and contact you and the insurer if the dispute looks resolvable without a formal hearing. Failing that, you may request a formal hearing before an administrative law judge on DWD’s application form, WKC-7, backed by medical support, usually a practitioner’s report on Form WKC-16-B; a represented worker’s lawyer also files a Certification of Readiness before DWD schedules the hearing.

Any party may also request a mediation conference, which DWD may schedule once the other parties agree in writing and an administrative law judge conducts (Wis. Admin. Code § DWD 80.16); the questions below cover it.

DWD sets each hearing’s date, time and place in a written notice served on or mailed to every party at least 10 days ahead (Wis. Stat. § 102.17(1)(a)2), and it states that hearings are generally held near the municipality of the applicant’s residence; the nearest of its locations to Fond du Lac is named in the questions below.

A hearing application tolls the limitation period while the case is pending, though the tolling cannot carry the deadline past the later of the case’s final disposition or the date it would otherwise have expired, and an order dismissing the application without prejudice sets the period running again (Wis. Stat. § 102.17(4)(a)1). To challenge the judge’s decision, either side petitions the Labor and Industry Review Commission, and DWD or the commission must receive the petition within 21 days after DWD mails the decision; a late petition is dismissed unless the lateness was for a reason beyond the petitioner’s control (Wis. Stat. § 102.18(3)). A party aggrieved by the commission’s order has 30 days from it to start a circuit court action by serving a complaint and filing the summons and complaint, and the court may allow 30 more days to a party prejudiced by an exceptional delay in receiving a copy of the order (Wis. Stat. § 102.23(1)(a)2). A worker bringing that action files in the circuit court for the county of residence, Fond du Lac County for a city resident, unless all parties stipulate to another court and it agrees (§ 102.23(1)(a)3).

Fond du Lac Workers’ Comp Questions

Does workers’ compensation cover hired hands on farms around Fond du Lac?

Coverage turns on how many people the farm has employed during the year, not just today’s headcount. Under Wis. Stat. § 102.04(1)(c), the law applies to a farmer 10 days after the twentieth day in a calendar year on which the farm employed 6 or more employees, at one location or several; a smaller farm may have elected coverage (§ 102.04(1)(e)). DWD’s farm guidance says the 20 days need not be consecutive and the 6 may be different people, full-time or part-time. Labor exchanged with other farmers does not count toward the 6 (§ 102.07(5)(a)), nor do certain relatives of the farmer. Once the threshold is crossed, every employee is covered, relatives included, while a contractor serving farmers, such as a silo filler, comes under the law like any other non-farm employer.

A press at a Fond du Lac County plant left my hand permanently damaged. How is that paid?

In two stages. While you heal and the injury keeps you off work, temporary total disability pays two-thirds of your average weekly wage, up to your injury year’s maximum. Once you have healed as much as possible, DWD’s guide says your practitioner determines whether a permanent disability remains. A lasting hand injury is then rated against the schedule in Wis. Stat. § 102.52, which sets 400 weeks for the loss of a hand, and a partial loss earns that share of the weeks (§ 102.55(3)), paid at two-thirds of your average weekly wage up to the permanent partial disability maximum. DWD’s guide adds that these benefits come monthly, not in one lump sum.

Will a hearing on my Fond du Lac claim be held in Madison?

Not necessarily. DWD holds workers’ compensation hearings at seven locations, in Madison, Milwaukee, Appleton, Eau Claire, Green Bay, La Crosse and Wausau, and states that hearings are generally held near the municipality of the applicant’s residence. The nearest of the seven to Fond du Lac is DWD’s Appleton Office, 54 Park Place, Suite 900, Appleton, WI 54914. What controls is the place in DWD’s written notice, sent to every party at least 10 days before the hearing. The Worker’s Compensation Division schedules hearings only through written letter, so check with the Division before acting on a call, text or email that claims to set one.

A family member hurt at work near Fond du Lac is more at ease in Spanish. What help is there in Spanish?

DWD publishes its guide for injured workers in Spanish as WKC-18-S-P, which calls the program “compensación al trabajador,” and in Hmong as well. If the insurer asks for an examination by a practitioner it selects, Wis. Stat. § 102.13(1)(b) entitles a worker who has difficulty speaking or understanding English to have a translator the worker provides at the exam, and the insurer’s written request must state that right, along with the rights to bring a practitioner and one observer. The insurer must also tender the worker’s necessary expenses, including transportation, before the exam. At Mays Law Office, se habla español.

Can a disputed workers’ comp claim be settled through mediation?

Yes, when the other side agrees to try. Under Wis. Admin. Code § DWD 80.16, any party may ask DWD to schedule a conference to discuss a mutually agreeable resolution without a formal hearing; DWD may schedule it once the other party or parties confirm their agreement in writing, an administrative law judge conducts it, and a party may ask for a specific judge. What is said there stays confidential, apart from listed records such as practitioners’ reports. DWD says about 80 percent of hearing requests are settled without a formal hearing. A compromise can give up some or all future benefits under its written terms and needs DWD’s approval.

What Workers’ Compensation Pays, and When

Benefits (DWD rate chart WKC-9572-P maximums):

• Temporary total disability: two-thirds of your average weekly wage while healing keeps you off work, up to $1,326 a week (2025 injuries) or $1,375 (2026 injuries).
• Permanent partial disability: up to $446 a week for injuries from 1/1/2025 through 3/31/2026, $454 for injuries from 4/1/2026 through 12/31/2026, and $462 for injuries on or after 1/1/2027 (2025 Wisconsin Act 145).
• Medical care: reasonable and necessary treatment of a compensable injury by a treating practitioner licensed and practicing in Wisconsin (a physician, chiropractor, psychologist, dentist, physician assistant, advanced practice registered nurse or podiatrist), whom you choose once your employer has notice of the injury and its relation to your work, with a second choice on notice to the employer or its insurer; by mutual agreement you may choose a qualified practitioner not licensed in Wisconsin, treatment on referral from your chosen practitioner counts as treatment by that practitioner, and in an emergency the employer may arrange care first and must offer the choice at the earliest opportunity afterward (Wis. Stat. § 102.42(2)(a)).

Deadlines:

• 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 it would have been last payable without an advancement (Wis. Stat. § 102.17(4)(a)).
• Two-year bar (§ 102.12): compensation is barred if no application is filed and nothing beyond medical or burial expenses is paid within two years of the injury, or of when you knew or ought to have known its nature and relation to your work, unless your employer knew or should have known of the injury in that time.
• No statute of limitations: occupational disease; 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; and 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), as amended by 2025 Wisconsin Act 145). The two-year bar still applies.

The insurer may request a reasonable exam in writing, tendering your necessary expenses, including transportation, beforehand; you may bring your own practitioner, one observer and, if English is difficult for you, a translator you provide, and you get copies of the reports (Wis. Stat. § 102.13(1)(b)).

Wis. Stat. § 102.26(2) generally caps a lawyer’s fee at 20 percent of the amount awarded, collected or settled, or 10 percent, up to $250, when liability is admitted, the amount is undisputed and no hearing or appeal is needed; DWD approves fees, and case costs such as medical reports can be charged separately. Guides: filing a claim, denied claims, lawyer fees and serious work injuries.

Who Handles Your Fond du Lac Claim

Attorney Lisa Pierobon Mays has represented injured workers for more than 25 years and concentrates her practice on workers’ compensation for the Wisconsin injured worker. Her J.D., earned cum laude at Thomas M. Cooley Law School, dates from 1995, the year she was admitted to the Wisconsin bar, and from 2001 to 2025 she sat on the Wisconsin Association of Worker’s Compensation Attorneys’ Board of Directors for District 7. More about her is on the Attorney Lisa Pierobon Mays page and in our Wisconsin workers’ compensation practice overview.

From its Middleton office, Mays Law Office represents injured workers across Wisconsin, including Fond du Lac County. Call 608-305-4518 or use the contact page; once the office has your information, Attorney Mays calls you back for a free consultation. Se habla español.

Workers’ Comp Help Near Fond du Lac

For an injury in a neighboring community, start with its own page:

• Waupun workers’ comp help
• workers’ compensation claims in Oshkosh
• workers’ compensation claims in West Bend
• injured workers in Juneau

Two guides walk through filing a claim and answering a denial:

• how to file a workers’ compensation claim in Wisconsin
• what to do if your workers’ comp claim is denied