Legal Question in Workers Comp in California

You do NOT get any 'back pay' when ordered off work by a physician in Workers Compensation.

you DO get Temporary Disability payments -- only 2/3 of your average weekly earnings -- but ONLY when there is a clear Off Work Order by a physician listed on the comp insurer's Medical Provider Network.

YOU GET NOTHING when you are released to Light Duty. When the physician writes you can work, you MUST report for work, attempt the work that is impossible, report to your supervisor that this work proved to be impossible, demand to be returned to the physician who wrote you could do this.

When you refused to report in for Light Duty, you abandoned your job, which is just like resigning.

So, your decision not to attempt to try the Light Duty and stay home resulted in you being terminated, and you are not entitled to Temporary Disability indemnity because no official physician has written you are Temporarily Totally Disabled and Off Work.

The real solution is to do hours and hours of research on the physicians within the Medical Provider Network for that comp insurance company; you got a letter at the beginning of the claim explaining the MPN, so you have to go to that website and look up physicians only on that list and see who is 'in bed' with the insurer, and who has a real practice with real positive reviews by real patients.

THEN when you find one of the 2% of the real doctors on the MPN you have to elect that doctor IN WRITING and give the insurance adjuster a deadline in which to authorize your new MPN treating doctor -- all in writing, never by telephone.

THEN you have to wait a month for an appointment with your new doctor.

IF you cannot do all of this alone, you need a LOCAL attorney familiar with the MPN Network for your insurer who get rush you into a real doctor on the network and get you your Off Work Order ASAP.