Key Takeaways
Georgia gives you 30 days to notify your employer and one year to file a claim (O.C.G.A. § 34-9-80, § 34-9-82); South Carolina gives you 90 days and two years (S.C. Code § 42-15-20, § 42-15-40). Georgia's one-year deadline shifts in two different ways that are commonly confused: one year from the last remedial treatment your employer furnished, but two years from the last payment of weekly benefits — the two-year clock runs from the last payment, not the last treatment. Georgia caps wage benefits at 400 weeks and South Carolina at 500, but the routes past those caps are opposites. Georgia's catastrophic designation is a functional test that can be argued and won on the facts of your working life. South Carolina's exception is a closed list: S.C. Code § 42-9-10(C) names paraplegia, quadriplegia and physical brain damage, and § 42-9-10(A) states that in no case may compensation exceed 500 weeks except as provided in that subsection. Continuing to prove total disability does not extend South Carolina's cap, and amputation is not on the list. On medical care the states are near opposites: a Georgia worker chooses their treating doctor from an employer-posted panel of at least six and may make one change without permission, while in South Carolina the employer directs care under S.C. Code § 42-15-60.
Both states cap how long wage benefits last, and both have a way out of the cap. The two escape hatches work nothing alike — and that difference decides what a serious claim is worth.
Georgia caps wage-replacement benefits at 400 weeks. South Carolina caps them at 500. Read only those two numbers and South Carolina looks like the better place to be hurt. That reading is backwards for the most badly injured workers, and understanding why is the single most useful thing on this page.
The deadlines, first
Workers’ compensation runs on shorter clocks than a personal injury case, and there are two of them in each state: one to tell your employer, one to file with the state.
| Georgia | South Carolina | |
|---|---|---|
| Tell your employer | 30 days from the accident O.C.G.A. § 34-9-80 |
90 days from the accident S.C. Code § 42-15-20 |
| File the claim | 1 year from injury O.C.G.A. § 34-9-82 |
2 years from injury S.C. Code § 42-15-40 |
| Form | WC-14 | Form 50 |
| Agency | State Board of Workers’ Compensation | Workers’ Compensation Commission |
Georgia’s one-year filing deadline can shift, and the two ways it shifts are not the same. This is worth stating carefully because it is commonly stated wrong:
- If your employer furnished remedial treatment, you have one year from the last treatment.
- If you were paid weekly income benefits, you have two years from the last payment of weekly benefits.
The two-year clock runs from the last payment, not from the last treatment. A worker who reads it the other way — who thinks medical care two years ago bought them two years — is a year past the deadline and does not know it.
South Carolina’s two years runs from the accident, or from the date of death where the accident was fatal. For repetitive-trauma injuries the clock starts when the worker knew or should have known the injury was compensable, but no claim survives more than seven years after the last exposure.
How long benefits last, and the cap that ends them
Both states pay two-thirds of your average weekly wage, subject to a state maximum. What differs is how long.
| Georgia | South Carolina | |
|---|---|---|
| Total disability | up to 400 weeks | up to 500 weeks S.C. Code § 42-9-10(A) |
| Reduced or partial benefits | up to 350 weeks | up to 340 weeks S.C. Code § 42-9-20 |
| Past the cap | catastrophic designation — a functional test | three named conditions — a categorical list S.C. Code § 42-9-10(C) |
| Medical benefits | not governed by these week limits | |
The part that actually decides the case
A worker who will never return to work does not care about the difference between 400 weeks and 500 weeks. Both run out. What matters is whether they get past the cap at all — and here the two states are built on opposite principles.
Georgia asks what you can still do. Its catastrophic designation covers amputations, severe paralysis, severe head injuries, severe burns and blindness, and it also covers any injury “of a nature and severity that prevents the employee from being able to perform his or her prior work and any work available in substantial numbers within the national economy.” A worker who qualifies receives two-thirds of average weekly wage for as long as they are unable to return to work, plus medical and vocational rehabilitation benefits.
That last clause is a functional test, not a diagnosis. It is argued, it is contested, and it is winnable on facts that have nothing to do with which body part was injured. A back injury can meet it. So the fight in a serious Georgia case is over the designation itself, and that fight is worth more than any other issue in the file.
South Carolina asks what happened to you. Section 42-9-10(C) provides that a person determined to be totally and permanently disabled who “is a paraplegic, a quadriplegic, or who has suffered physical brain damage is not subject to the five-hundred-week limitation and shall receive the benefits for life.”
Three conditions. Not a test — a list. You are on it or you are not, and no amount of proof that you remain totally disabled puts you on it. Subsection (A) is explicit: “in no case may the period covered by the compensation exceed five hundred weeks except as provided in subsection (C).”
This is the correction most worth making, because the opposite is widely repeated: South Carolina benefits are not extended past 500 weeks by continuing to prove disability. A worker with a devastating orthopaedic injury — multiple amputations, a destroyed spine that stops short of paraplegia — hits the cap at 500 weeks and stops, however plainly they will never work again. Amputation is not on the subsection (C) list.
Separately, § 42-9-10(B) treats the loss of both hands, arms, shoulders, feet, legs, hips, or vision in both eyes — or any two of those — as total and permanent disability. That establishes the disability; it does not lift the 500-week cap.
So the comparison inverts. For a moderate injury, South Carolina’s extra hundred weeks is real money. For a catastrophic one, Georgia’s functional test is the door South Carolina does not have.
Who picks your doctor
This is the difference injured workers notice first, and the states are close to opposites.
In Georgia, you choose. Your employer must post a panel of at least six physicians — including an orthopaedic surgeon, a minority physician and four other qualified physicians — and you select your treating doctor from that list. If you are dissatisfied with your first choice, you may make one change to another physician on the same list without anyone’s permission. Further changes need the employer’s or administrator’s agreement. Some employers instead use an approved managed care organisation, which offers a wider choice.
Two consequences follow, and both favour the worker who knows them. Going to a doctor who is not on the list is unauthorised treatment, and the employer is not responsible for the cost — nor, usually, is your health insurer. But if your employer has not posted a valid panel at all, that failure can free you to treat with a physician of your own choosing.
In South Carolina, the employer directs care. Under S.C. Code § 42-15-60 the employer, at its own option, may furnish the attending physician. You can ask the Commission to authorise a change if you are dissatisfied, but the default control sits with the employer and its carrier.
The practical effect is that a South Carolina worker’s medical record — the document that decides the whole claim — is written by a doctor the other side selected. Nothing about that is improper. It is simply the system, and it is a reason to be precise and consistent about your symptoms from the first appointment.
Waiting periods and the first cheque
In Georgia you are entitled to weekly income benefits once you have missed more than seven days of work. The first cheque should be mailed within 21 days after the first day you missed work. If you are out more than 21 consecutive days, you are paid for that first week as well.
South Carolina’s total disability benefit is two-thirds of average weekly wage, and § 42-9-10 sets a floor of $75 a week alongside the statutory maximum.
What this guide does not tell you
Two things, deliberately.
It does not give you the current maximum weekly benefit rate in either state. That figure is set by the date of injury and changes; a number published here would be wrong for someone reading it later, and wrong in a way that looks authoritative.
It does not tell you which system your claim belongs in. Workers’ compensation is generally the exclusive remedy against your employer, but an injury at work caused by someone who is not your employer — a subcontractor, a delivery driver, a defective machine — can support a separate claim that is not capped by any of the week limits above and can include pain and suffering, which workers’ compensation never does. Whether you have one of those is a question about the facts of your accident, not about the statutes.
Sources
Every legal statement above traces to a primary source: the text of the cited Georgia and South Carolina code sections, and the Georgia State Board of Workers’ Compensation’s own employee handbook for Georgia’s benefit mechanics, panel rules and filing deadlines. Where a figure could not be confirmed from one of those, it is not here.
Related
- Filing deadlines in Georgia vs South Carolina
- Workers’ compensation claims
- South Carolina’s comparative negligence rule
Frequently Asked Questions
About the Author
Eric Roden
Founding Partner, CEOEric Roden has represented injury victims from the outset of his career and has never advocated on behalf of insurance companies. He focuses on wrongful death, automobile accidents, nursing home negligence, and workers’ compensation law. In 2013, he became a founding partner of Roden Law, dedicated to providing advocacy for injured clients. Education J.D., University […]
View Full Profile →