Minnesota: School District Not Entitled to Credit for Benefits Paid Via Government-Service Pension Plan

An industrial arts teacher and volleyball coach, who was awarded PT disability benefits related to a work-related incident, is entitled to receive both the disability benefits paid pursuant to the workers’ compensation law and the benefits he was entitled to receive via a government-service pension plan since the latter benefits are not “old age and survivor insurance benefits” within the meaning of Minn. Stat. § 176.101, subd. 4, held the Supreme Court of Minnesota.  Citing Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the court noted that the teacher had not applied for any benefits under the Social Security Act, nor had he applied for any disability benefits under the state-run pension plan. While the teacher’s workers’ compensation benefits could appropriately be offset by other disability-type benefits, there was no such credit for the state-run pension.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is a leading commentator and expert on the law of workers’ compensation.

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance. Bracketed citations link to lexis.com.

See Ekdahl v. Independent Sch. Dist. #213, 2014 Minn. LEXIS 365 (Aug. 13, 2014) [2014 Minn. LEXIS 365 (Aug. 13, 2014)]

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 157.04 [157.04]

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

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