Worker who accepted buyout receives lower cap on benefits

In Tennessee, an employee who returns to work but later retires and resigns for personal reasons or reasons that are not reasonably related to his workplace injury has had a meaningful return to work for workers' comp purposes.

Case name: Blake v. Nissan North America, Inc., No. M2009-02173-WC-R3-WC (Tenn. 11/10/10, unpublished).

Ruling: In an unpublished decision, the Tennessee Supreme Court held that a worker had a meaningful return to work. The court modified the amount of benefits awarded.

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What it means: In Tennessee, an employee who returns to work but later retires and resigns for personal reasons or reasons that are not reasonably related to his workplace injury has had a meaningful return to work for workers' comp purposes.

Summary: An assembly line worker for a car manufacturer developed carpal tunnel syndrome and trigger finger in his right hand. The injury was accepted as compensable. After surgery, the worker returned to full-time work in his regular job for 18 months. At that time, his work week was reduced from 40 hours per week to 32 hours as part of a plant-wide reduction. Later, he voluntarily left his job in exchange for a payment offered by the manufacturer to reduce its workforce. The Tennessee Supreme Court held that the employee had a meaningful return to work and awarded 6 percent permanent partial disability benefits for the right arm.

The court stated that the employee clearly sustained a loss of income after he made a meaningful return to work. The loss of income was not related to his work injury, but was due to a plant-wide reduction in hours for the purpose of saving jobs. The court considered a new law that was passed while the suit was pending that demonstrated legislative intent that a general reduction in wages caused by economic conditions and undertaken for the purpose of saving jobs will not automatically open previously capped settlements for reconsideration. The court applied a lower cap to the award of benefits.

Read more at the WorkersComp Forum homepage.

January 20, 2011

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