Posted: October, 2001
Temporary Total Eligibility Clarified
State, ex rel. Schack v. Indus. Comm. (2001), 93 Ohio St.3d 247.State ex rel. Wagers v. Indus. Comm. (2001), 93 Ohio St.3d 218.
Issue: Does an injured worker retain eligibility for temporary total compensation when they are working at a different job than the one they held when injured at the time their condition becomes temporarily and totally disabling?
Background: Both of these cases involve injured workers who suffered an injury, and then quit the employment they had been doing when they were injured. Both injured workers were working at other jobs when they suffered an additional period of temporary total disability.
Both injured workers were denied temporary total by the Industrial Commission based on the "abandonment doctrine", which indicated that an injured worker lost eligibility for temporary total when they left the job they were doing when injured. That doctrine has since been clarified by the Ohio Supreme Court in State, ex rel. Baker v. Indus. Comm. (2000), 89 Ohio St.3d 376.
Each of the injured workers in this case left their employment for different reasons than the injured worker in Baker. That injured worker had left to take other employment. By contrast, the injured worker in the Schack case left as part of a negotiated settlement of a law suit, and the injured worker in the Wagers case left because he was eligible to retire.
Both injured workers obtained other work after leaving the employment they had been doing when injured.
Decision: The Supreme Court held that both injured workers were entitled to temporary total. The Court makes it clear that abandonment will only bar temporary total if the injured worker has abandoned the total job market. Because these injured workers had not abandoned the job market, they were entitled to temporary total.
Editor’s Comment: These decisions explain that the correct focus for temporary total eligibility is the disabling effect of the injury, rather than the reason for leaving a job.
This information was provided courtesy
of the Ohio
Workers'
Compensation Bulletin. Click on the case name to
view this decision on
the Supreme Court's web site.