Nebraska: Average Weekly Wage Included Room and Board for Professional Football Player

Acknowledging that for purposes of computing an injured worker’s average weekly wage, board, lodging, or similar advantages received from the employer were not to be included, unless the money value of such advantages was fixed by the parties at the time of hiring, the appellate court held that is was appropriate for the Commission to find a professional football player’s AWW was $903.25, rather than the weekly salary of $225 to $250 he received each week during the football season. The Court said the Commission could find that the employment agreement contemplated that the room and board be provided and that the reasonable value had been fixed at the time the employment arrangement was forged between the parties.

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 Foster-Rettig v. Indoor Football Operating, L.L.C., 25 Neb. App. 551, 2018 Neb. App. LEXIS 35 (Feb. 20, 2018)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 93.01.

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