What is the North Carolina Industrial Commission?

The Industrial Commission (informally called the NCIC, or sometimes super informally called just the IC) is the government agency which is in charge of handling all workers’ compensation claims. You may not realize this but workers’ compensation claims do NOT go to court. You will never see a judge or a jury in a workers’ compensation case.

If there is a dispute in your case it will be heard by a Deputy Commissioner. The Deputy Commissioner is like a judge. He or she will hear your side of the story, your employer’s side of the story, what the doctors have to say and then will file a written decision called an Opinion and Award.

The losing side on and Opinion and Award can file an appeal to the Full Commission. The Full Commission is a panel of three Commissioners who reconsider the evidence, which was presented to the Deputy Commissioner. The attorney for each side gets 20 minutes to tell the Full Commission what they should focus on, and the Commissioners may very well be asking that attorney a lot of questions.