On This Page
Below are the head notes for the FAB decisions and orders relating to the topic heading, State Workers’ Compensation Benefits. The head notes are grouped under the following subheadings: Coordination with Part E award, Relationship of coordination and the maximum amount payable, and Settlement of claim. To view a particular decision or order in its entirety, click on the hyperlink for that decision or order at the end of the head note.
Coordination with Part E award
- No coordination of benefits payable under Part E to the surviving spouse is required to account for state workers’ compensation benefits previously received by the employee for the same covered illness but not by the surviving spouse. EEOICPA Fin. Dec. No. 53489-2006 (Dep’t of Labor, December 14, 2005); EEOICPA Fin. Dec. No. 70540-2005 (Dep’t of Labor, October 26, 2005).
- Where employee had filed a Part E claim but died before payment could be issued for his lung cancer, Part E medical benefits awarded to the survivor needed to be coordinated with the amount of the state workers’ compensation benefits that the employee had received for the same covered illness since the Part E medical benefits were based on the employee’s entitlement to Part E benefits. EEOICPA Fin. Dec. No. 70540-2005 (Dep’t of Labor, October 26, 2005).
- When an employee’s spouse receives state workers’ compensation benefits due to the employee’s death and the spouse subsequently dies, Part E benefits payable to the employee’s child are not coordinated with the amount of state workers’ compensation benefits received by the spouse. EEOICPA Fin. Dec. No. 10002848-2005 (Dep’t of Labor, July 27, 2005).
Relationship of coordination and the maximum amount payable
- To give the proper effect to both EEOICPA and the regulations, an employee’s potential Part E benefits are capped when the combination of impairment and/or wage-loss benefits reach the statutory maximum of $250,000, and this amount must then be coordinated with the state workers’ compensation benefits that the employee received (if appropriate) to arrive at the net lump-sum Part E benefit amount to be paid to the employee. EEOICPA Fin. Dec. No. 10032182-2006 (Dep’t of Labor, March 3, 2008).
- A judge issued an order approving a settlement of a state workers’ compensation claim that the employee filed for asbestos-related lung disease, the same covered illness that the FAB later accepted in his Part E claim. Although the judge’s order contained language implying that the settlement was also for a “non-malignant respiratory injury,” the medical evidence of file only established that the claimant had been diagnosed with asbestos-related lung disease. Thus, the amount of the settlement of his state workers’ compensation claim was coordinated with the Part E award because the claimant did not receive state workers’ compensation for an actual non-covered illness in addition to a covered illness. EEOICPA Fin. Dec. No. 10013372-2006 (Dep’t of Labor, May 9, 2007).
- Coordination of Part E award for asbestosis with state workers’ compensation settlement was required where the employee’s workers’ compensation complaint alleged “asbestosis or asbestos-related lung disease, due to, or as a consequence of his exposure to asbestos” and the court order approving the settlement found that the employee had contracted one work-related illness, “asbestos-related lung disease.” The court’s statement that the settlement would relieve the employer of all liability to the employee for “the claimed occupational asbestos-related lung disease and any non-malignant respiratory injury” did not mean that the settlement was for anything other than the employee’s covered illness of asbestosis, which was the only work-related disease established by the medical evidence of record. EEOICPA Fin. Dec. No. 10039710-2007 (Dep’t of Labor, November 30, 2007); EEOICPA Fin. Dec. No. 10068242-2008 (Dep’t of Labor, July 25, 2008).