“They have me sitting in a room doing nothing.”

Why employers do it

Because a modified-duty offer stops temporary disability, or reduces it to a partial payment. An employer who puts you somewhere — anywhere — has arguably made work available.

And because the supplemental job displacement voucher is owed where the employer does not make a qualifying return-to-work offer. An offer, even a hollow one, is an attempt to avoid that obligation.

And sometimes because they want you to quit. A person given nothing to do for eight hours a day, in view of colleagues, frequently does.

What matters legally

Is the work real? A genuine assignment has tasks, a purpose, and a place in the operation. Watching a wall does not.

Does it fit your actual restrictions? Sitting in a chair for eight hours violates a restriction against prolonged sitting, and that is not a technicality — it is a medical restriction the employer is required to honor.

Is it at your regular wage? A reduction in earnings may entitle you to temporary partial disability covering part of the difference.

And is it the same shift, the same location, and the same terms? A “modified” job at a different site at 5 a.m. is a different job.

What to do

Write down what you actually did each day. Dates, hours, tasks — or the absence of them. A contemporaneous log is the whole evidentiary case here, and nobody else is keeping one.

Report any restriction that is being violated, in writing, to both your employer and the claims administratorClaims administrator / adjuster The person handling your claim for the insurer or self-insured employer.. Including “I am required to change position hourly and there is nowhere to do that.”

Ask for the offer in writing if you have not received one. A qualifying return-to-work offer has form requirements; a verbal instruction to sit somewhere is not one.

Tell your treating physician what you are being asked to do all day. The restrictions may need to change, and the physician cannot write what they do not know. Getting restrictions in writing.

Do not quit. Quitting resolves the employer’s problem and creates several of yours — including on the voucher and on any § 132a claim. If they are pressuring you.

The part worth naming

This is demoralizing, and being demoralized is not a legal argument. But sustained humiliation at work is also a documented cause of psychiatric injury, and where the conduct goes beyond a good-faith personnel action it can matter. If it is affecting you, tell a doctor rather than only telling yourself it is not worth mentioning. Psychiatric injury.