If an injured employee refuses suitable employment as defined by G.S. 97-2(22), the employee shall not be entitled to any compensation at any time during the continuance of such refusal, unless in the opinion of the Industrial Commission such refusal was justified. Any order issued by the Commission suspending compensation pursuant to G.S. 97-18.1 on the ground of an unjustified refusal of an offer of suitable employment shall specify what actions the employee should take to end the suspension and reinstate the compensation. Nothing in this Article prohibits an employer from contacting the employee directly about returning to suitable employment with contemporaneous notice to the employee's counsel, if any.
N.C. Gen. Stat. § 97-32
Refusal of injured employee to accept suitable employment as suspending compensation
Known as the The North Carolina Workers' Compensation Act
The act spans §§ 97–97 (132 sections).
Applied in 40 court decisions — leading case 123 N.C. App. 200 - Franklin v. Broyhill Furniture Industries (1996)
Most recently applied in 245 N.C. App. 144 - Falin v. Roberts Co. Field Services, Inc. (February 2016)
1929, c. 120, s. 32; 2011-287, s. 12.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: North Carolina General Assembly. Reproduced from public-domain North Carolina statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.