In the past two months there have been several important Maine Supreme Judicial Court decisions affecting Maine Workers' Compensation. Consider how these decisions may apply to your workplace:

1. Higgins v. H.P. Hood, Inc. – Permanent impairment assessments affect how long an employee may receive incapacity benefits under the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act.  In this case, the employee asked the Maine Law Court to reject the State Independent Medical Examiner permanent impairment assessment because of inaccuracies.  The Court found the inaccuracies did not rise to a level of clear and convincing evidence necessary to reject the Examiner’s conclusions. 

2. Monaghan v. Jordan's Meats – Employees may receive full Workers' Compensation lost time benefits in three different ways:

a)      An employee may be found totally unable to work due to an injury. 

b)      An employee may prove there is no work available within the employee's limits, in a local community, and the employee is unable to perform full-time work in the Statewide labor market, whether jobs are available or not. 

c)      100% partial incapacity premised upon limitations and an employee's inability to find work after a "good faith" work search. 

This case, for the first time, lists nine specific factors to be considered by Hearing Officers when reviewing work search. 

3.Nichols v. S.D. Warren/Sappi – The Maine Workers’ Compensation Act has offset provisions to eliminate employee double recoveries.  Coordination of benefits may occur if an employee receives monies from social security, a pension, or under a disability insurance policy.  In Nichols, the Court found a lump payment from an employer-funded group insurance policy should be construed as a payment under a disability insurance policy. This resulted in the employee's workers' compensation benefits being subject to an offset.

4. Foley v. Verizon – The Maine Workers’ Compensation Act avoids employee double recoveries of benefits. After a workers' compensation injury, the employee took a severance/pension lump sum payment from Verizon.  He also received a monthly social security supplemental payment from the Company.  The Workers' Compensation Hearing Officer found the employer could take immediate relief against workers' compensation benefits, and this coordination of benefits would be a weekly offset rather than one offset at the time of the lump payment.  The Court ruled the legislative intent of the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act was to avoid employee double recoveries of benefits.

5. Saucier v. Nichols Portland – The total permanent incapacity provisions of the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act did not supercede the original retirement presumption. The Maine Law Court reversed the decision of the Hearing Officer finding a retired 79-year-old employee was entitled to total permanent lost time benefits reflecting 800 weeks of incapacity.  By history, the employee retired in 1997, was found to have a work-related injury to her hands and wrist, but was not entitled to workers' compensation benefits because she had retired.  She was entitled to protection of the Act for medical costs.  The Court ruled that even though the employee's medical condition worsened in later years, the total permanent incapacity provisions of the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act did not supercede the original retirement presumption. 

If you would like additional detail, or would like to discuss any of the decisions and their implications, please visit http://www.maine.gov/wcb/ or contact Nelson Larkins at Preti Flaherty by email at nlarkins@preti.com or 207.791.3000.