Kentucky: High Court Reiterates Four-Year Reopening Rule Does Not Always Refer to Date of Original Award

Pursuant to Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 342.125(3), no claim may be reopened more than four years “following the date of the original award or order granting or denying benefits.” Where a worker’s original claim alleging a neck injury was filed on March 14, 2007, and an ALJ approved an award of PPD benefits based upon impairment rating of eight percent on Nov 13, 2007, and the worker filed a motion to reopen in April 2009—well within the four-year limitations period—on the basis that her condition had worsened and, in September 2011, the ALJ determined that the worker’s PPD had increased from eight to 28 percent, a subsequent motion to reopen filed in 2014 was timely, since it was filed within four years of the September 2011 award, held the Supreme Court of Kentucky. The employer contended the statute’s use of the term, “original award,” meant the reopening petition had to be filed within four years of the original 2007 award. The high court disagreed, noting that the issue had been decided by the court in Hall v. Hospitality Resources, Inc., 276 S.W.3d 775 (Ky. 2008). The Court indicated that in Hall, it held the legislature recognized an "original award" as something separate and distinct from a subsequent "order granting or denying benefits" and intended to allow a four-year period for the reopening of an order granting or denying benefits. The Court noted that several legislative sessions had come and gone in the nine years since Hall was decided, and the legislature has not acted to amend the statute.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Toyota Motor Mfg. Ky., Inc. v Prichard, 2017 Ky. LEXIS 452 (Nov. 2, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 131.02.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law