An injured employee is responsible for meeting five basic requirements — the burdens of proof — before the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs (OWCP) accepts the claim. Discover the fundamentals of the three least-contested burdens: timeliness of the claim, federal employee status, and fact of injury; plus gain insight on the two most litigated areas: performance of duty and medical causation, with this easy-to-read pamphlet.

You'll quickly understand both the employee’s and OWCP's burdens in the process — so you’re confident in your decisions and avoid the unnecessary costs of mishandled claims.

With Employee Compensation Appeals Board decisions illustrating key points, you learn:

• Specific activities that immediately remove an employee from the "scope of employment" and result in a claim being denied
• Whether an injury has to be witnessed to be compensable, and what to do when a supervisor doubts an employee's injury claim
• Why simple exposure to a harmful environment or the existence of an accident is insufficient to support a claim
• What questions to ask if you doubt the link between an injury/illness and an employee's performance of duty
• And more!