Minnesota: Temporary Total Disability Owed May Not Be Offset by Payments Made Under Short-Term Disability Plan

Payments made to an injured employee under an employer’s short-term disability may not be used to offset amounts owed to the employee for the same period of disability under the employer's self-funded, self-administered, short-term disability (STD) plan, held the Supreme Court of Minnesota. The Court initially acknowledged that public opinion disfavored a double recovery. Further, it recognized the employer’s concern that was effectively penalized for maintaining an additional wage-loss benefit for its employees suffering a covered workers’ compensation injury, and through this STD program, immediately paying benefits to its employee when an injury occurred. Nevertheless, in the absence of a legislative offset provision, the Court could not create one. The Court added that if a different result was necessary, the Legislature — not the Judiciary — had to act.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Bruton v. Smithfield Foods, 2019 Minn. LEXIS 91 (Feb. 27, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 157.05.

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