Workers Compensation Law Firm Advice: Documenting Lost Wages in Orlando Claims

Workers’ compensation in Florida looks simple on paper. You get hurt on the job, you report it, the insurer pays for treatment and covers a portion of your wages while you recover. Anyone who has filed a claim in Orlando knows it rarely unfolds that cleanly. Lost wages turn on details: the right pay stubs, accurate average weekly wage calculations, clear doctor restrictions, proper notice to the employer, and timing that tracks the statute. Miss or mangle any one of those and the insurer can deny or delay benefits that you are otherwise entitled to receive.

I have watched claims come apart over a missing pay stub from a second job. I have also seen a warehouse worker increase weekly checks by nearly 200 dollars after we corrected an improperly calculated average weekly wage. The difference often comes down to documentation. What follows is a practical, field-tested guide to documenting lost wages in Orlando workers’ compensation claims under Florida law, with the kind of specificity that persuades adjusters and holds up before a Judge of Compensation Claims.
What counts as “lost wages” in a Florida workers’ comp claim
Florida pays wage replacement benefits when a work-related injury causes you to lose earning capacity. The type of benefit depends on your medical status and work restrictions.
Temporary Total Disability (TTD): You cannot work at all per authorized doctor. Pays 66 2/3 percent of your average weekly wage (AWW), subject to a state maximum. Temporary Partial Disability (TPD): You can work with restrictions but earn less than 80 percent of your AWW. Pays 80 percent of the difference between 80 percent of AWW and your post-injury earnings. Impairment Income Benefits (IIBs): After you reach maximum medical improvement (MMI) and receive a permanent impairment rating, you may receive benefits based on that rating, even if back at work. Permanent Total Disability (PTD): For severe injuries preventing any gainful employment as defined by statute.
Most disputes in Orlando revolve around TTD and TPD while you are still treating. The insurer will look for anything suggesting you can return to work or that your loss is less than claimed. Your job is to align the medical documentation with wage proof and keep those two in sync.
The AWW is the engine: get it right from the start
Average weekly wage drives nearly every dollar of wage replacement in a Florida claim. The statute usually looks at the 13 full weeks before the accident, not counting the week of injury. You add up what you actually earned during those weeks and divide by 13. If you didn’t work substantially the whole 13 weeks, the law allows substitute calculations, including a similar employee’s wages or a “fair and just” estimation that reflects your customary hours and pay.

Insurers often default to the simplest, lowest number. That is where a seasoned workers compensation lawyer earns their fee. I have corrected AWWs where overtime was left out, shift differentials were ignored, or a second job was overlooked. Here is what should be included when appropriate under Florida law and case guidance:
Base hourly or salary pay. Overtime and shift differentials actually earned. Regular bonuses or commissions that are wage-like and predictable. The value of employer-provided benefits that constitute wages in the employment contract, a narrower category that requires careful analysis.
Tips matter for service workers, but only if you can show them. If you regularly worked 50 hours and reported tips that pushed your weekly earnings to 900 dollars, an AWW based on 40 hours at 15 dollars misses reality by hundreds each week.

If you were new on the job or had sporadic hours, the 13-week method may not fairly capture your typical earnings. In that case the law permits using a similar employee or a fair and just method. Pull rosters and pay histories for coworkers with the same role and schedule. In a theme park injury case off International Drive, we used a lead ride operator’s schedule to prove expected overtime during peak season, and it increased our client’s checks by roughly 160 dollars per week.
Proving TTD and TPD: the doctor’s note is your gatekeeper
Lost wages in Florida flow only after an authorized treating physician sets restrictions or declares you unable to work. An emergency room note can start the process, but ongoing wage benefits depend on the physician selected by the carrier or provided under authorized care. If you step outside the authorized network, the insurer will often challenge the treatment and any associated work notes.

For TTD, you need a clear statement that you are unable to work due to the workplace injury. For TPD, the note must list specific restrictions and a timeframe, for example, no lifting over 10 pounds, no overhead reaching, seated work only, recheck in two weeks. Vague language like light duty as tolerated invites disputes. I ask doctors to write restrictions that match the real tasks of the job. If your position requires carrying kegs, the restriction should address lifting, load, and repetition, not just a generic light duty tag.

Keep every work status slip. Take a photo the day you receive it, save it as a PDF, and email it to yourself. Adjusters lose faxes. Contractors misplace notes in glove boxes. Your organized file protects your benefits.
The seven-day waiting period and retroactive pay
Florida has a seven-day waiting period before wage benefits begin. You will not get paid for the first seven calendar days unless your disability lasts more than 21 days, in which case those first seven days become payable retroactively. People forget this and panic when the first check excludes week one. Track your days out. If your disability pushes past three weeks, follow up and request the retroactive payment.
Light duty offers and the trap of the “made up” job
Orlando employers in hospitality, warehousing, construction, and healthcare often offer light duty to bring employees back quickly. If the authorized doctor’s restrictions match the offered tasks, you must accept or risk losing wage benefits. Some employers bend rules. They promise seated work, then slip you back onto the floor lifting supplies. Document what actually happens. If you are asked to violate restrictions, call your workers comp attorney immediately and ask your supervisor to confirm the assigned tasks in writing.

I once had a client offered a “desk job” after a rotator cuff tear. The assignment turned out to be “monitoring” a loading dock while standing eight hours. We secured a doctor’s clarification and notified the carrier. The assignment did not match restrictions, and TTD resumed. A short, factual email to HR with dates, times, and tasks saved weeks of haggling.
Overtime, seasonal spikes, and second jobs
Central Florida’s economy runs on seasonal demand. Theme park staff, hotel housekeepers, servers, and warehouse crews see big hour swings around holidays and conventions. Florida law allows the AWW to reflect your real earnings pattern. If your 13-week look-back includes a slow patch but your job regularly involves 10 to 20 hours of overtime during high season, gather schedules and payroll records from the months before and after. The fair and just method or a similar employee comparison can capture the true wage. It is not automatic, and an experienced workers compensation lawyer must often push for it, but it is available.

Second jobs matter too. If your injury prevents you from working both jobs, income from both can be included in the AWW, provided the employment was concurrent and you can document it. The classic miss: a rideshare driver who never saved weekly summaries. Recreate what you can using bank deposits, 1099s, and platform reports. Even a conservative reconstruction can add hundreds per week to your benefits.
How to document lost wages with precision
You do not need a banker’s archive, but you do need a system. The goal is to make it effortless for an adjuster to see what you earned, what you lost, and why the law supports the number. Use a folder on your phone and a simple spreadsheet. Keep medical, wage, and correspondence files separate.

Here is a clean, five-part stack we build for clients:
Earnings proof: 13 weeks of pay stubs before injury, plus W-2s or 1099s, and bank statements showing direct deposits. For tipped workers, include employer tip reports and any point-of-sale summaries. Schedule and hours evidence: Work schedules, timesheets, and, if needed, similar employee schedules for fairness comparisons. Medical status notes: Every work status slip with dates and precise restrictions. Keep chronological order. Employer communications: Light duty offers, HR emails, task descriptions, and any written assignment changes. Post-injury earnings: If you return part time or in a reduced role, save all pay stubs and timesheets to calculate TPD properly.
That is one of the two lists in this article, and it reflects how we arrange files when we submit to carriers or present to a Judge of Compensation Claims. The structure signals credibility and reduces excuses for delays.
Calculating TPD without leaving money on the table
Temporary partial disability benefits are where math errors hide. Florida uses a formula that compares your post-injury earnings against 80 percent of your AWW. If you earn less than that threshold because of work restrictions, the insurer pays 80 percent of the shortfall. The moving pieces are AWW, actual post-injury earnings, and the authorized restrictions.

Practical pointers:
Insist the carrier calculates TPD weekly using real pay stubs, not a rolling estimate. Hospitality workers often see weekly swings that change the benefit. If you miss part of a week for authorized appointments, adjusters sometimes shave your hours. Document the appointment times and ask your supervisor to confirm excused time. For cash tips, deposit them or keep a contemporaneous log corroborated by coworkers or floor managers. A reasonable, consistent log weighs better than a memory at hearing.
In a downtown Orlando restaurant case, the server returned to light duty as a host. She earned 450 dollars per week instead of her typical 900 with tips. Her AWW captured those tips because we had six months of tip records. The adjuster initially offered TPD based on a 600 dollar AWW. We escalated with the full record and secured a recalculation to 900 dollars, which raised weekly TPD by more than 150 dollars.
When the 13-week period is misleading
Construction hires, gig workers, and recent transfers often lack 13 full weeks before injury. If you worked only a portion of that period or had a temporary lull, push Workers comp lawyer near me https://www.instagram.com/workinjuryrights/ for a fair and just method. Evidence that helps:
Offer letters stating expected hours or salary. Crew schedules showing standard shifts for your role. Project calendars reflecting anticipated overtime. Affidavits from supervisors on typical hours and pay.
We handled a distribution center case where the worker started two weeks before peak season. The initial AWW ignored the known 12-hour shifts slated to start the following week. Using published peak schedules and manager emails, we achieved an AWW that reflected the imminent shift load, not just the two quiet weeks.
Watch the dates: notice, deadlines, and payment cadence
Florida requires prompt notice to your employer, generally within 30 days of the accident or of learning that the condition relates to work. Report sooner. Put it in writing, include date, time, location, task, and any witnesses. Late or vague notice invites denial.

Once the claim is open and disability is certified, wage checks are typically issued biweekly. If a payment is late, email the adjuster with the specific pay period dates, attach your work status, and copy your workers comp law firm. Ask for a payment ledger. Most carriers will correct routine misfires quickly when presented with clean documentation. If a pattern emerges, we file a petition and seek penalties and interest as permitted by statute.
Light duty that pays less: documenting the delta
Even when you accept a legitimate light duty assignment, you can qualify for TPD if your wages drop below 80 percent of AWW. The key is proving that the reduction flows from medical restrictions, not unrelated factors. Keep the job description for both roles, pre-injury and post-injury, and gather a few weeks of stubs showing the new rate or hours. If the employer cut shifts broadly due to slow business, your benefit may narrow. If your reduced output comes from limits on lifting, reaching, or standing, your benefit should reflect the medical cause.

In a hotel housekeeping case near the convention center, the injured worker moved to linen inventory with a strict 10-pound lift limit. The job paid the same hourly rate but offered fewer hours. With a clean stack of calendar schedules, we established the hours reduction was baked into the new assignment for safety reasons, not a random staffing choice. TPD was awarded for the difference.
Common insurer tactics and how to counter them
Most adjusters are overworked rather than malicious, but claims departments have patterns.
Under-inclusive AWW: They omit overtime, bonuses, or concurrent employment. Counter with a complete 13-week packet, explanations, and, if needed, similar employee data. Vague work status exploitation: They treat a soft restriction as a green light. Ask your doctor to specify pounds, durations, and prohibited motions. Surveillance and social media: They look for contradictions. If your doctor allows light yard work, be clear about it at appointments. Do not joke online about workouts. Even innocent posts get twisted. Post-injury earnings misread: They average pay over a month to suppress weekly spikes. Provide weekly stubs and request weekly calculations as the law contemplates. Delay by document drift: They claim missing pages. Send indexed PDFs, label pages, and confirm receipt. Follow with a short, dated log of transmissions.
A workers comp attorney near me, a phrase I hear often from clients when they first search for help, is valuable not just for legal arguments but for running this documentation gauntlet with discipline.
Special notes for gig, temp, and hospitality workers
Orlando’s labor market includes rideshare drivers, food delivery couriers, staffing agency placements, banquet servers, and seasonal theme park hires. Each has wrinkles.

Gig workers must prove employment status within the scope of Florida workers’ comp, which can be contested. If covered, your AWW turns on reported platform income. Pull weekly summaries, mileage logs, and bank deposits. For temp staff, get both the staffing agency’s and host employer’s records, plus the contract showing pay terms. Hospitality workers should preserve tip pools, tip-out sheets, and end-of-day reports. When I say preserve, I mean photograph them daily and back them up. Paper gets lost in kitchens and loading docks.
Medical consistency: the spine of your wage claim
Every wage check traces back to your medical record. Be consistent with your history and symptoms. If you cannot stand for more than 20 minutes, do not tell physical therapy you went to Universal for six hours, then try to explain that you sat most of the time. It is better to skip the trip or to document how you managed within restrictions. Adjusters read treatment notes. Judges do too.

Bring a one-page job description to each appointment. Doctors write better restrictions when they see the actual tasks: lift 60-pound boxes to shoulder height, repetitive overhead reaching to stock shelves, climb ladders, stand 8 to 10 hours on concrete. Specificity links the medical record to the wage loss in a way that withstands scrutiny.
When to bring in a workers compensation attorney
If your wage checks arrive late, the AWW looks low, or light duty does not match restrictions, you should talk with an experienced workers compensation lawyer. Early involvement often pays for itself. A workers compensation attorney near me can intervene before miscalculations harden into months of underpayment. If your employer is pressuring you to return to full duty against medical advice, you need representation now, not after the damage.

Look for a workers comp attorney who regularly practices before Orlando’s Judges of Compensation Claims, knows the local carriers and defense firms, and can point to recent results in similar industries. The best workers compensation lawyer for your case is one who has handled your specific wage issues, whether that is tipped income, concurrent employment, or seasonal overtime. You want a workers comp law firm that treats evidence like a craft, not a checklist.
A brief, real-world example
A warehouse selector in Orange County suffered a lumbar injury while pulling cases. He worked overtime four nights a week, averaging 55 hours, and occasionally picked up shifts at a second warehouse. The carrier calculated AWW using only 40 hours and ignored the second job because the worker could not find every pay stub. We rebuilt the 13-week period using the employer’s timekeeping system, bank deposits, and a coworker’s comparable schedule for the weeks with missing records. We obtained a corrected AWW from 720 to 1,030 dollars. During TTD, that meant an increase of about 206 dollars per week. When he returned to light duty at 24 hours per week, precise TPD calculations based on weekly stubs protected another 120 to 180 dollars per week, varying with the schedule.

None of that required a courtroom argument. It required meticulous documentation, a cooperative doctor who wrote clear restrictions, and pressure on the carrier with an organized, labeled evidence packet.
Building your file from day one
You cannot retrofit a perfect record six months later. Start now. Keep a simple daily log that notes pain levels, restrictions, work assignments, and any deviations. Photograph light duty postings and schedules. Save every medical note. Set calendar reminders for follow-up visits and expected payment dates. Share copies with your workers comp law firm so they can spot patterns early.

Here is a compact checklist that captures the rhythm of a strong wage-loss claim in Orlando:
Report the injury in writing immediately, describe tasks and witnesses, and keep a copy. Collect 13 weeks of pre-injury earnings, including tips, overtime, and any second job. Get precise work restrictions from the authorized doctor and update them at each visit. Track post-injury earnings weekly and match them to restrictions for TPD calculations. Document all employer communications about light duty, including actual tasks performed.
That is the second and final list. Everything else lives in your narrative file: dates, facts, and corroboration.
Fees, penalties, and interest
Florida’s fee system often allows a workers compensation attorney to recover fees from the carrier when a benefit is wrongfully denied and later secured, subject to statute and case law. If wage checks are late without justification, penalties and interest may apply. Do not leave that money unclaimed. It rarely arrives by accident, and it encourages carriers to tighten their payment practices.
What Orlando-specific factors change the calculus
Our region’s mix of hospitality, logistics, construction, and healthcare means more shift work, more tips, and more overtime than many markets. Carriers know that. They also know many workers move between jobs or juggle two employers. That creates opportunity and risk. The opportunity is a higher AWW when properly documented. The risk is gaps that let a carrier default to a bare-bones calculation.

Union contracts, common in some hospital and public sector roles, can help by defining wage components and differentials. On the flip side, staffing agencies sometimes complicate who is the employer for wage purposes. Nail down the employer of record early, and secure pay records from the right entity.
Final thoughts from the trenches
Documenting lost wages is not glamorous legal work, but it is where families make rent and cover groceries while healing. Flawless medical notes, a fair AWW, accurate TPD math, and timely checks are achievable with steady attention. If you are overwhelmed, search for a workers compensation lawyer near me and interview a few firms. Ask how they handle AWW disputes, how they track TPD weekly, and how quickly they escalate late payments. Choose an experienced workers compensation lawyer who speaks in specifics, not platitudes.

Orlando workers bring grit to the job. Bring that same focus to your claim file. Get the numbers right, keep the paper tight, and do not let anyone talk you out of benefits the law provides. If you need a partner in that process, a seasoned workers comp lawyer can turn messy facts into a clean record that gets you paid.