New York: Evidence Supported Finding That Worker Was Entitled Only to 15 Percent Loss of Wage-Earning Capacity

The Workers’ Compensation Board properly ruled that a worker sustained a permanent partial disability not amenable to a schedule award and a 15% loss of wage-earning capacity under N.Y. Work. Comp. Law § 15(3)(w)(xii)—a finding that set a maximum benefit duration of 225 weeks—because the worker failed to cite any determinative authority for the proposition that the Board must define the specific impact of the factors considered in determining his loss of wage-earning capacity. The court added that the Board properly considered the worker’s functional abilities and limitations, the severity of his impairment and the fact that he was 50 years old, had a bachelor’s degree in computer science and physics, was pursuing a Master’s degree, and was proficient in the English language.

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 Matter of Drake v. SRC, Inc., 2017 N.Y. App. Div. LEXIS 1872 (3rd Dept. Mar. 16, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 80.02.

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