May 2007 SBH Quarterly Newsletter
PDF FormatWashington WC Claims: Court
Employer contributions to a union trust for health care benefits must be included in a worker’s monthly wage calculation.
The Washington Supreme Court further expanded Cockle in Dep’t of Labor & Indus. v. Granger. In this case, the worker was a member of a union that used an hour bank system to determine eligibility for medical benefits. At the time of his injury, the worker did not have enough hours to be eligible for coverage, as his hours had dropped previously. Independent of a worker’s eligibility for healthcare coverage, the employer paid money into the trust account based on every hour the claimant worked. The court focused on the payment of the benefit and not whether the worker was entitled to the coverage at the time of the injury. It also found WAC 296-14-526 partially invalid based on its conflict with the holding that receiving at the time of injury language in RCW 51.08.178 means payments made for the benefit and not on eligibility for coverage itself. Unless you have a final wage order, employers will need to carefully delineate the amount and type of union benefits that are being paid at the time of injury in order to calculate a person’s monthly wage rate. Dep’t of Labor & Indus. v. Granger, 159 Wash2d 752, 153 P.3d 839 (March 1, 2007).
Worker injured while getting a drink of water in the break room prior to beginning his shift found to not be in the course of employment by Court of Appeals.
An employee was reading magazines in the employer-provided break room prior to starting his shift. He injured himself when he got up to get a glass of water. The court found the employee was not acting in furtherance of the employer’s direction or in furtherance of the employer’s business at the time of injury. The court confirmed coverage only exists under RCW 51.08.013 if: (1) the worker is acting at the employer’s direction or in the furtherance of the employer’s business; (2) while the employee is going to or coming from work on premises occupied, used or contracted for by the employer for its business; (3) immediate to the time the employee is to engage in the work process in areas controlled by the employer; (4) outside the fixed and compensated work time of the injured employee; and (5) regardless of whether the injury occurred within the time limits on which industrial insurance premiums are payable. The court acknowledged no one had ever defined “immediate” and concluded the employee failed to satisfy the first prong of the test and never addressed the other prongs. Johnson v. Safeway, 2007 WL 512540 (Wn.App. Div. 1 (February 20, 2007) (Unpublished)).
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