The question in this case is whether a decedent’s estate is entitled to the decedent’s entire award of certain workers’ compensation benefits, or only that potion of the award that accrued before the worker died.
Generally speaking, a worker is entitled to workers’ compensation benefits if she is injured on the job. This case involves what is called a schedule loss of use (SLU) award. A worker is entitled to a SLU award when she injures a body part that is included on a schedule set out in the Workers’ Compensation Law. For each body part listed in the schedule, the schedule establishes a maximum number of weeks of benefits that a worker can receive. A worker’s benefit will be a portion of that maximum number of weeks depending on the percentage loss of use of the body part that resulted from the worker’s injury. Thus, for example, the schedule allows a maximum of 312 weeks of benefits for an injured arm. A worker whose injury resulted in a 25 percent loss of use of her arm would be entitled to 312 * 0.25, or 78 weeks of benefits. (The worker’s weekly benefit is based on her average wage.)
This case involves the intersection of two rules governing the payment of SLU awards. First, under a 1953 decision from the Third Department–which handles almost every workers’ compensation appeal and thus sets many of the rules governing workers’ compensation benefits–if a worker is entitled to a SLU award but dies before all of the weeks she is entitled to receive are paid out, the worker’s estate is entitled to benefits only for the weeks that accrued and were payable before the worker’s death. See Matter of Healey v. Carroll, 282 App. Div. 969 (1953). Second, pursuant to a 2009 amendment to the Worker’s Compensation Law, a worker can request to have her entire SLU award paid out in a single lump-sum payment.
Here, the question is whether, for the purposes of determining whether a deceased worker’s estate is entitled to post-death SLU benefits, the 2009 amendment means that a SLU award accrues at the time the worker was injured or accrues in each week when the award becomes payable.
Petitioner was injured on the job and later died. He was posthumously granted a SLU award, and his estate sought to recover the award on the theory that, under the 2009 amendment, the entire award accrued on the date of the worker’s injury. But the Third Department rejected that argument, finding nothing in the history of the 2009 amendment suggesting that the Legislature intended to abrogate the general rule that a deceased worker’s estate is only entitled to SLU benefits that accrued and were payable prior to the worker’s death.
The Court of Appeals granted the estate leave to appeal.
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