Usually no - your employer does not get to legally punish you for reporting a real work injury in New Hampshire.

A common Nashua version looks like this: a stock worker at a big box store gets clipped when a shelf or display gives way, feels dizzy, and a supervisor says, "Just use your health insurance and don't make this a workers' comp thing." Then the schedule suddenly gets lighter, or "light duty" turns into no shifts at all. That is where people get spooked fast.

Here are the general rules in New Hampshire:

• Report the injury immediately to a supervisor or manager, even if you think it is "just" a head bump or neck strain.
• If you need urgent care, get it. For a serious head injury, go now. In Nashua that may mean Southern New Hampshire Medical Center or St. Joseph Hospital, and the worst cases can be transferred to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, the state's only Level I trauma center.
• Ask that the injury be handled as workers' compensation, not your regular health insurance.
• Write down who saw it, what fell, the time, and what your boss said.

New Hampshire workers' comp is generally no-fault. That means you do not have to prove the store meant to hurt you.

If your employer cuts hours, threatens you, or fires you because you reported a workplace injury or sought benefits, that can be retaliation. Complaints go through the New Hampshire Department of Labor.

If the claim gets denied, you can challenge it through the Department of Labor hearing process.

And one more thing surprises people: if an outside company caused the danger - for example, a vendor installed the shelving badly - you may have a separate third-party claim on top of workers' comp. That claim does involve fault, and New Hampshire's 51% bar can matter there.