§85A-32. Permanent total disability awards.

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A research copy — for the controlling text, always check the official state or federal source. Not legal advice.

A. If an employee who is a "physically impaired person" receives an accidental personal injury compensable under the Administrative Workers' Compensation Act which results in additional permanent disability so that the degree of disability caused by the combination of both disabilities results in disability materially greater than that which would have resulted from the subsequent injury alone, the employee may proceed against the Multiple Injury Trust Fund for permanent total disability.

Only disability due to an injury to the body as a whole at a subsequent employer shall be combinable with a prior body disability, except that disability to a member may be combined with disability to the body as a whole. If such combined disabilities constitute permanent total disability, as defined in Section 2 of this title, the employee shall receive full compensation as provided by law for the disability resulting directly and specifically from the subsequent injury. In addition, the employee shall receive compensation for permanent total disability if the combination of injuries renders the employee permanently and totally disabled.

The employer shall be liable only for the degree of percent of disability which would have resulted from the subsequent injury if there had been no preexisting impairment. The compensation rate for permanent total disability awards from the Multiple Injury Trust Fund shall be the compensation rate for permanent partial disability paid by the employer in the last combinable compensable injury.

B. Permanent total disability awards from the Multiple Injury Trust Fund shall be payable in periodic installments for a period of eight

(8)years or until the employee reaches sixty-five

(65)years of age, whichever period is longer.

C. Permanent total disability awards from the Multiple Injury Trust Fund shall accrue from the file date of the order of the Workers' Compensation Commission finding the claimant to be permanently and totally disabled.

D. Before a physically impaired person can proceed against the Multiple Injury Trust Fund, the previously adjudicated compensable permanent partial disability adjudged and determined by the Workers'

Compensation Court, the Workers' Compensation Court of Existing Claims or the Workers' Compensation Commission and the permanent partial disability from the last injury must exceed fifty percent (50%) to the body as a whole. However, amputations and loss of use of a scheduled member qualifying as previous impairment under paragraph 2 of subsection A of Section 30 of this title shall be considered in lieu of previously adjudicated compensable permanent partial disability.

E. Awards under this section shall abate upon the death, from any cause, of the employee.

F. Reopening any prior claim other than the last injury claim against the employer shall not give a claimant the right to additional Multiple Injury Trust Fund benefits.

G. The Multiple Injury Trust Fund shall have authority to compromise a claim for less than the indicated amount of permanent total disability. Orders shall be paid in periodic installments beginning on the date of the award, unless commuted to a lump-sum payment or payments, by agreement of the claimant and the Multiple Injury Trust Fund. All offers made by the Multiple Injury Trust Fund pursuant to this section shall be conveyed by the claimant's attorney to the claimant within five

(5)days of receipt of the offer.

H. If an order is entered finding an employee to be permanently totally disabled as a result of combined disability, and such order is the result of a compromised settlement, the employee is thereafter prohibited from making an additional claim against the Multiple Injury Trust Fund. An attorney for a claimant against the Multiple Injury Trust Fund shall be entitled to a fee equal to twenty percent (20%) of permanent disability benefits awarded. The attorney fee shall be paid in periodic installments by the attorney receiving every fifth check. All benefits awarded to the attorney shall be vested at the time the award becomes final.

I. In the event a claimant receiving benefits for permanent and total disability from the Multiple Injury Trust Fund dies as a result of his or her injury before the award has been fully paid, payments shall continue to the surviving spouse for five

(5)years or upon remarriage, whichever occurs first. In no event shall payments to the surviving spouse extend beyond the period of benefits awarded to the claimant. Added by Laws 2013, c. 208, § 32, eff. Feb. 1, 2014. Amended by Laws 2019, c. 476, § 61, emerg. eff. May 28, 2019.