workerscompbiz.com

It’s time to pay semi-yearly Ohio workers’ compensation premiums, and here’s a situation one company faced.

Situation. The owner did not take a paycheck for all 26 weeks, but she did take $1,200 each week for 14 weeks. The question was whether she had to report her actual earnings for 14 weeks and then the minimum for the other 12 weeks.

The answer is NO. As much as possible, use the actual earnings. In this case, multiply the weekly earnings times the number of weeks paid, $1,200 times 14 weeks, which totals $16,800. This is more than the minimum required, and less than the maximum. So the owner only has to report her real earnings of $16,800 regardless of how many weeks she took a check.

Minimum and maximum. Corporation officers, and sole proprietors and partners who have elected to be covered by Ohio workers’ compensation, must report certain minimum dollars of payroll. Currently, the minimum is $384 per week, so an officer has to report at least $9,984 for six months ($384 times 26 weeks). The maximum the officers, sole proprietors and partners have to report is $1,151 per week, or $29,926 ($1,151 times 26 weeks).

50-50 Plan. What if the officer chooses the 50-50 plan, where he only reports three months of payroll? Again, the officer multiplies the minimum $384 times 13 weeks, which equals $4,992. As long as his actual earnings are between the minimum of $4,992 and the maximum of $14,963 ($1,151 times 13 weeks), he should report his actual earnings. He has to report at least $9,984 and no more than $29,926 at the end of the 26 weeks regardless of when he actually received the money.

I just visited the new and improved Industrial Commission (ICO) website, ohioic.com, and I am favorably impressed. The site is bright and appealing, and it was easy to access the pages I use the most. I didn’t look at everything, but I liked what I saw.

However, I find it ironic that under News and Press Releases, there is a lengthy explanation of a court case that upheld the Industrial Commission officers ruling in a permanent total disability (PTD) claim. The claimant is named and his physical limitations are clearly identified.

Why is this ironic? Since S.B. 7 took effect in 2008, the ICO no longer makes available the decisions of its hearing officers for attorneys to review when preparing their appeals to the Commission. This means that attorneys don’t know how the hearing officers made their decisions in similar cases, which also means that employers and claimants may incur unnecessary legal expenses for appeals that will probably not succeed. And yet here is the ICO, bragging about a court decision that upheld one of its decisions. Why the double standard?