What should you do if an injured employee who is temporarily disabled becomes incarcerated for an unrelated crime?

Continuing to pay temporary disability benefits to an injured employee who becomes incarcerated for an unrelated crime is appropriate because their entitlement to those benefits is not automatically terminated by their incarceration. Temporary disability benefits are designed to replace lost wages due to their work-related injury. The underlying rationale is that the injury, and the associated disability, gets priority over their legal troubles.

Moreover, California Workers' Compensation law stipulates that benefits related to a work injury must be maintained as long as the injury continues to result in medical incapacity, regardless of the employee's criminal status. This means that unless the employee is disqualified from receiving benefits for specific reasons outlined in the law (such as being incarcerated for actions directly related to their job), the temporary disability payments should continue.

In this case, stopping the payments would disregard the legal framework that protects the injured worker’s rights. The other options, such as filing a report with authorities or requesting a hearing, might be necessary in some situations, but they do not address the immediate concern of continuing the worker's benefits in light of their temporary disability stemming from a work-related injury.