WC Case Law Update – Changes to the 350 week cap

The Supreme Court has ruled on the application of the 350 week limit on PPD awards. Mr. Cantwell suffered many injuries against his employer with awards of PPD from the Court of Existing Claims and Commission. The employer asserted the Claimant was not entitled to any additional PPD awards as the result of additional injures the Claimant sustained.  The ALJ found PPD in all three of his new injuries but denied payment finding he had reached the statutory limit of 350 weeks of PPD awards. The Claimant appealed. The Supreme Court found that to avoid constitutional infirmity, the 100% limit of PPD benefits controls over the number of weeks when awarding compensation for PPD. This was close vote 5-4 with a strong dissent. However, this now means we will have to look to PPD percentages rather than number of weeks when calculating PPD limits.

The link to the case can  be found here: https://www.oscn.net/applications/oscn/DeliverDocument.asp?CiteID=495163