Many of my clients in Douglasville ask me where the courthouse is for workers’ compensation cases. I warn them that it is not so simple of an answer. Many just assume that because my office is located directly across the street from the Douglas County Courthouse that the State Board of Workers’ Compensation hears cases at our courthouse. The answer may be surprising.
Georgia law dictates that the county in which a worker suffers an on the job injury determines what location the case will be heard. For example, if a workers’ comp. client is injured in Douglas County, GA, their case will be heard at the State Board of Workers’ Compensation in Atlanta. If this is the case, any judge that works in Atlanta may be assigned to hear the case in a hearing. However, if a client suffers a work injury in Paulding County, the case will be heard in Rome, GA and will be assigned to the only Administrative Law Judge covering that area of the State of Georgia. On the other hand, if somebody suffers a Carroll County workers’ compensation injury, their case will be heard at the Carroll County Courthouse by the Administrative Law Judge who handles cases in Carroll County, GA.
The general rule of thumb is that the further an injured worker is away from Atlanta when he or she gets injured, the more likely extensive travel will be necessary to get to the courthouse in which the workers’ comp. case will be heard.
For those lawyers out there who read my articles, the legal authority for where a hearing is held is O.C.G.A. 34-9-102((b) which states, in pertinent part, that, “…the hearing shall be held in the county where the injury or death occurred or in any contiguous county or in any count within 50 miles of the court o fthe injury or death…”
