North Carolina is an employment-at-will state. Your employer does not need “grounds” to terminate you. Therefore, your employer can terminate you while you are out of work for a work-related injury, or after you have an injury at any point. It is illegal for you to be terminated because you file a workers’ compensation claim, but proving this is the reason for termination is not an easy task. In many instances, individuals do get terminated, or “dropped from the books” as an employee, after being out of work for a period of time in a workers’ compensation claim.