Iowa Workers' Compensation

  Prairie View Management, Inc. v. Moran , No. 22-2023 (Iowa App. Sept. 27, 2023) Claimant emailed her employer with her resignation on December 5, 2019, with the resignation being effective on December 20.  On December 9, she was injured at work.  She submitted a formal letter of resignation a day after the injury, giving the same December 20 end date.  After the injury, claimant's duties were modified.  Claimant testified that she verbally sought to rescind her resignation, but did not file a written resignation.  The employer never offered work to claimant after December 20 and did not pay temporary benefits. The commissioner concluded that claimant was entitled to penalty benefits and temporary total disability benefits, as the employer had never offered work to claimant.  On judicial review, the district court reversed the decision of the agency and concluded that claimant was not entitled to penalty or temporary benefits.  The Court of Appea...

In Menard, Inc. v. Bahic, No. 14-0239 (Iowa App. Nov. 26, 2014), the commissioner found a 60% industrial disability and concluded that the commencement date for permanency was October of 2012.  Defendants urged the court to reverse, arguing that permanency should commence in May of 2011 and that the industrial disability award was inappropriate.  The court of appeals affirmed the decision of the agency. Claimant suffered a stipulated injury to his back in August of 2010.  Dr. Igram, although finding that surgery was not appropriate, imposed 20 pound restrictions on claimant, which precluded his former, heavy, work.  Claimant was placed on a job in the sales department answering phones and helping customers.  He worked on this job from February of 2011 until his termination in July of 2011. He received temporary partial disability benefits during this time, because he was often not provided with his former hours of work. The employer sought to place claimant ...

In Staff Management v. Jiminez , 839 NW2d 640 (Iowa 2013), the Iowa Supreme Court addressed an issue that they had elliptically addressed in the past - the right of undocumented workers to receive workers' compensation benefits.  The court concluded that Iowa's statute did not exclude undocumented workers from coverage and also found that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 (IRCA) did not act to preempt state laws governing workers' compensation.  Three amicus curiae  briefs were filed in Jimenez  by the Workers' Injury Law and Advocacy Group, the Iowa Association of Justice's Workers' Compensation Core Group and the National Employment Law Project.  Jamie Byrne of Neifert, Byrne and Ozga wrote the amicus brief for the Core Group. The factual situation in Jimenez  involved a worker who was documented at the time she began employment, but who became undocumented during the time that she worked for the employer.  She was injured at work, and...

In Annett Holdings v. Allen , No. 12-0388 (Iowa App. Oct. 17, 2012), the court of appeals addressed a suitable work issue in the trucking context, as the Supreme Court had earlier done in Neal v. Annett Holdings , 814 N.W.2d 512 (Iowa 2012).   Allen involved the same trucking company, with the same light duty program in Des Moines as had been the case in Neal .  The primary difference in Allen was that claimant lived in Mississippi, and was over 800 miles away from home.  He declined to perform light duty work in Iowa, and the court concluded that the work offered was not suitable.  The court concluded that the distance traveled to the proposed light duty work was unreasonable, given the distance involved, claimant's cervical fusion, the restriction on the amount of time he could sit, and other physical limitations.  The court affirmed the agency, and reversed the district court in awarding healing period benefits. The court also addressed the finding that cla...

Neal v. Annett Holdings , 814 NW2d 512 (Iowa 2012) represents the first time the Iowa Supreme Court has addressed issues regarding suitable work for truck drivers, who are often required to perform light duty work at a home terminal which may be hundreds or even thousands of miles away from the claimant's home.  The divided court concluded, in a 4-3 decision, that light duty work offered to a claimant who lived 387 miles from the terminal, and had family in his home state, was not suitable work under the circumstances. The evidence at hearing demonstrated that when claimant was driving, he was able to return home every weekend and occasionally during the week to his wife and three children.  Under the light duty work program, claimant was able to return only once every other weekend.  The arbitration decision found that the light duty work was suitable and that claimant had a 15% industrial disability for his shoulder injury.  On appeal, the commissioner found that...

In ABCM Corp. v. Manning , No. 1-225 (Iowa App.  May 25, 2011), the court addressed the issue of cumulative injuries, and the further question of when those injuries became manifest.  Claimant suffered injuries to her knees and low back, which ultimately led to knee replacement surgery.  The commissioner found that claimant was not aware of the compensable nature of her injuries until after she had left employment, and rejected defendants' arguments that they had improper notice and that the statute of limitations had run. The court noted that the questions of the nature, seriousness and possible compensable character of the injury under Herrera  was a question of fact under Midwest Ambulance v. Ruud .  Here, the commissioner had a substantial degree of latitude in determining when the claimant should have known, as a reasonable person, when her injuries were compensable.  There was no error of law in finding that claimant did not know about compensabilit...