Wyoming: TTD Awarded Beyond Statute’s 4-Year Time Frame

Generally speaking, Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 27-14-605(b) and (c) provide that an employee’s right to receive TTD benefits ceases four years after the injury, although the employee may be awarded medical benefits beyond that time period. Where an employee sustained an admitted injury to his right knee in 2007, for which the Division paid medical and TTD benefits and, in 2014, sought additional TTD benefits associated with a knee replacement that had been approved by the Division, it was error for the Division to refuse additional TTD benefits for the recuperative period. The Supreme Court noted that a single incident could give rise to more than one compensable injury. Under the plain terms of Wyo. Stat. Ann. § 27-14-404(a), the employee could receive TTD benefits beyond the four-year period if he or she could establish a “second compensable injury,” i.e., that the initial compensable injury had ripened into a condition requiring additional medical intervention. Noting that it had spoken on the issue before, the Court declined to adopt the narrow reading utilized by the Division.

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 In re Matter of Hall, 2018 WY 35, 2018 Wyo. LEXIS 37 (Mar. 30, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 131.01.

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