Richmond Workers’ Compensation Lawyer: How a Claim Runs on Franklin Street, What It Pays, and What I Do About It

Corey R. PollardWorkers’ compensation attorney · Former insurance defense · $100M+ recovered

A nurse at HCA Chippenham Hospital earning $1,050 a week herniates a disc while turning a patient. By the time she gets home, her claim could already have a file number with Sedgwick, HCA’s third-party administrator. Her employer or its third-party administrator may already have opened a file and begun evaluating the claim’s potential cost. I’m a Richmond workers’ compensation lawyer, and I used to help employers and insurers make that evaluation. Now I’m on the other side, building cases that win before the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission on 333 E. Franklin Street, a few miles from my office on Midlothian Turnpike. Those wins lead to bigger workers’ comp settlements.

When a Richmond workers’ compensation claim is denied, medical treatment is disputed, or weekly checks stop, I represent the injured worker before the Virginia Workers’ Compensation Commission. I know how the other side evaluates these claims because I used to do that work. Now I use that experience to build claims for the people who need the benefits.

My Virginia workers’ compensation guide gives an overview of the process for injured employees throughout the Commonwealth. This page explains how workers’ compensation claims in Richmond can play out: the employers and adjusters I see most often, what benefits you can receive, what to expect at the hearing on Franklin Street, and the questions injured Richmond workers ask me first.

The Virginia Workers’ Compensation Act determines the benefits your employer owes; income replacement and medical expenses are not a favor, they’re your right. An attorney can help you overcome most of what goes wrong in the first 30 to 60 days after a work injury or the diagnosis of an occupational disease, but only if it’s caught in time.

Why it matters that the Commission sits in Richmond

The Commission has jurisdiction over every workers’ comp claim filed in the Commonwealth. But a Deputy Commissioner based at headquarters decides a Richmond case, not one in a regional office. A Deputy Commissioner is the Commission’s hearing officer, the person who acts as the judge in a workers’ comp case. Occupational injury and illness claims from Richmond, Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland, Powhatan, New Kent, Charles City, Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Prince George, and Dinwiddie are docketed for hearing downtown. The three Commissioners who decide appeals from hearings sit in the same building, as do the Commission’s clerk and mediation staff.

Eight Deputy Commissioners sit at the Richmond headquarters as of November 2026, including the Chief Deputy Commissioner, who hands that role to a successor in April 2027. Many came to the bench from private practice, and I tried cases against several of them before they joined the Commission.

If your claim goes to hearing because the employer and insurer refuse to offer an Award Agreement form that resolves the dispute, the hearing will take place in one of two courtrooms on the lower level of the Commission’s Franklin Street headquarters. A Deputy Commissioner will take evidence and listen to argument, not a jury.

The parties will also submit medical evidence before anyone gives testimony. I’ve tried cases in the Commission’s courtrooms from both sides, first for employers and insurers, and now for the people they cover. I know what facts you need testimony on and what evidence to submit to give you the best chance of receiving an award from the Deputy Commissioner.

Where Richmond workers get hurt, and who handles the claim

In 2025, employers reported 4,948 work injuries in Henrico, 4,456 in Chesterfield, and 4,286 in the City of Richmond to the Commission, with another 1,978 in Hanover. Across the thirteen localities whose claims are heard on Franklin Street, that is 18,767 reported injuries, about one in seven in Virginia, according to the Commission’s 2025 Annual Report.

This table shows the employers I see most often, the injuries that occur, and who you will deal with after reporting the claim.

Whoever the employer is, the people answering the phone are many of the same companies I dealt with as defense counsel and deal with now from the other side: Sedgwick, Gallagher Bassett, ESIS, CCMSI, CorVel, Helmsman, and the localities’ own programs. My third-party administrator page explains how each one works a file. The adjuster isn’t your enemy and isn’t your advocate. Adjusters are graded and promoted on metrics that have little to do with what you care about: closing files, holding reserves, and settling claims for less than what was set aside. Your recovery is not on that scorecard.

What to do in the first 30 days

Virginia gives you 30 days to tell your employer about the accident in writing under Va. Code § 65.2-600, and two years to file a claim with the Commission under § 65.2-601. Richmond workers can lose claims in the first month after an injury as easily as at a hearing.

1. Report the accident in writing the day it happens. Put it in your own words; don’t let someone else do it. Review my sample accident report to see what to include.
2. Ask for the panel of physicians under § 65.2-603 and pick your treating doctor from it, after discussing it with a lawyer. You want a doctor who treats your injury well and is willing to help in litigation. Richmond panels usually include OrthoVirginia, Tuckahoe Orthopedics, the hospital systems’ occupational medicine clinics, and Patient First or a similar urgent care center. The choice matters more than it looks. The treating physician’s opinions can carry substantial weight before the Commission, particularly when supported by medical records and consistent with the injury history. That doesn’t mean every treating doctor’s opinion wins. The quality of the examination, the medical reasoning, and the consistency of the records matter.
3. File a claim with the Commission through WebFile even if the insurer is paying. Voluntary payments are not an award, and only an award protects you when the payments stop. My how to file a claim page walks you through the form.
4. Decline the recorded statement until you’ve talked to a lawyer, and sign only a medical release limited to this injury and the medical providers you’ve seen for it.
5. Keep working if the doctor says you can, go to every appointment, and tell the doctor everything that hurts. The Commission reads the records, not your memory.

My first 48 hours page covers the same ground in more detail.

What a Richmond claim pays in 2026

The benefits are the same in Richmond as in Roanoke, Norfolk, or Fairfax.

Take the nurse from the first paragraph, hypothetically. Her wage benefits, if her restrictions hold:

This is an illustration of the maximum indemnity exposure under a hypothetical 500 weeks of qualifying total disability, not an estimate of settlement value or a prediction that benefits will continue for 500 weeks.

You probably noticed that my table leaves out lifetime medical. That benefit is sometimes worth more than the wage benefits. A settlement also involves present-value calculations, the value of future medical treatment, and potentially applicable cost-of-living adjustments. Whether COLA applies depends on the particular claim and the statutory requirements.

What the adjuster is doing while you wait

The adjuster handling your Richmond file may look at several things before receiving the first medical bill: your compensation rate (the employer can provide this information), a guess at how many weeks your doctor may keep you out of work, and factors that weaken your case (a gap in treatment, prior injuries) and strengthen it (having an experienced lawyer, a well-documented accident with witnesses).

That is why the first call from the adjuster comes fast and sounds kind. The innocent questions can reveal ways to defend against your claim.

How a hearing at 333 E. Franklin Street works

Many Richmond workers’ compensation claims never see a hearing room. The ones most likely to are denied claims, disputed surgeries, and the employer’s applications to stop benefits.

After a claim is filed and the employer responds, the Commission sets an evidentiary hearing, usually several months out, before a Deputy Commissioner. Under the Commission’s rules, you file medical records and depositions in advance. I hand mine to the bailiff as soon as I walk in the courtroom. The hearing itself is mostly testimony, usually yours, a supervisor’s, and sometimes an adjuster’s, in a hearing room in the Franklin Street building or by video if the Commission orders it. The Deputy Commissioner issues a written opinion weeks later. Either side can ask the full Commission to review it within 30 days under § 65.2-705. The full Commission decides on the record and written statements, with oral argument in some cases, in the same building. From there, the Court of Appeals of Virginia, also in Richmond.

Winning at hearing starts well before the hearing date. Depending on what you are asking for, you may need medical records, causation opinions, the wage chart, work restrictions, and marketing/job search evidence months or weeks before trial. Your testimony then supports what those documents hopefully say already.

My hearing page covers what to expect in the room; my Full Commission review page covers the appeal.

The mistakes that cost injured Richmond workers their benefits

• Telling a supervisor but never putting it in writing. Suddenly the supervisor “forgets” that you got hurt.
• Going to the family doctor instead of a panel doctor, and losing the argument about who the treating physician is. Specialists typically beat generalists when it comes to medical evidence.
• Giving the recorded statement the week of the injury, before anyone explained what it’s for, and not providing details.
• Taking the insurer’s checks for a year and never filing a claim, then learning there is no award to enforce when the checks stop.
• Accepting the first settlement offer on a claim with surgery still pending.
• Describing a lifting injury as “my back has been hurting from the work.” That sentence describes a repetitive-motion injury, which Virginia does not cover under an injury by accident theory. “I felt it go when I lifted the patient” describes an accident, which Virginia does cover.

If you also have a Social Security disability claim

Richmond is one of the few places in Virginia where both of your claims are decided within a few blocks of each other. The Social Security Administration’s Richmond hearing office is at 1100 E. Main Street, and many of my Richmond workers’ comp clients with serious injuries have a disability claim running beside the comp claim. The two interact. A comp settlement can reduce your Social Security check through the offset, and the settlement wording controls how much. My Richmond disability lawyer page covers the hearing office. My workers’ comp and Social Security offset pages cover the interaction, one of the few places in this practice where a lawyer who handles both claims puts more money in your pocket.

Richmond workers’ compensation lawyer for Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, and the Tri-Cities

My Richmond office handles claims from the city and from Henrico, Chesterfield, Hanover, Goochland, Powhatan, New Kent, Charles City, Petersburg, Colonial Heights, Hopewell, Prince George, and Dinwiddie. All of them are docketed for hearing in Richmond. The pages for Henrico County, Chesterfield County, Hanover County, Petersburg, and Colonial Heights cover the employers and issues particular to each. Hampton Roads claims start with my Newport News office and the Hampton Roads pages. Northern Virginia claims are handled by phone, video, and at the hearing site, as the Northern Virginia page explains.

Common questions, straight answers

Before you call anyone

Write down what happened and who you told. Find the panel letter if you were handed one. Pull your last 52 weeks of pay stubs. That is the start of the claim.

Tell me what’s happening. I’ll tell you what it means. Free, confidential, and I respond personally, usually the same business day. Richmond (804) 251-1620.

About the authorCorey Pollard is a Virginia workers’ compensation and Social Security Disability attorney in Richmond. Best Lawyers in America® (2020–2026), $100M+ recovered, and a former insurance defense lawyer, which is the part that matters.