Workers compensation payments must be offset by other payments made by the employer, to avoid double recovery.

Conant v. Entergy Corporation, 2016 VT 74 (filed July 8, 2016)

EATON, J. Employer challenges the denial of its request for a credit against future workers' compensation benefits owed to claimant. Employer asserts that, given the payments it made to claimant under the terms of a collective bargaining agreement (CBA), as well as the retroactive temporary total disability (TTD) payments it was ordered to make, claimant has received more money as wage replacement than she was owed. We agree. We therefore reverse the Commissioner of the Department of Labor's decision on this point, and remand for a determination of the amount to be offset from claimant's future workers' compensation benefits

The CBA makes plain the parties' intent that payments for occupational injuries are offset by workers' compensation payments. Because AIG denied claimant's request for workers' compensation benefits, employer began paying claimant salary continuance and short-term disability benefits pursuant to the nonoccupational disability provision in the CBA. A Department of Labor workers' compensation specialist issued an interim order directing employer/AIG to pay claimant TTD benefits retroactive to the date on which claimant began losing time from work as a consequence of her injury As a result, claimant received more in combined compensation and CBA wage replacement benefits than she would have received had the injury been deemed either occupational or non-occupational from the outset.

The Commissioner allowed employer/AIG to offset future TTD benefits that it paid for weeks during which claimant also received payment from employer for her accrued continuance of full salary days. The Commissioner was unwilling, however, to extend the offset to include the retroactive short-term disability benefits that employer paid. The Commissioner stated, "these issues are best resolved in the context of the agreement's grievance and dispute resolution system, not in the context of a workers' compensation proceeding."

The Commissioner's decision regarding the short-term disability benefits is erroneous. Employer does not need to resort to the grievance process to resolve this question. The "overpayment" here resulted solely from the Commissioner's order. See Yustin v. Department of Public Safety,. 2011 VT 20, ¶ 5.( employer could offset the sick wages that it paid to a claimant during a period of temporary total disability against workers' compensation benefits that it was ordered to pay for the same period.)

Our decision in Yustin rested on the "clear and strong policy against the double recovery of benefits" underlying the Act. Id. ¶ 7. We made clear in Yustin that an employer complies with the Act when a claimant "receive[s] full and direct payment of wage replacement from the employer during the disability period." 2011 VT 20, ¶ 10. That requirement was satisfied here, and neither the Act nor the CBA provides any grounds for obligating employer to pay more. The Commissioner's decision must be reversed to allow employer the offset to which it is entitled.

ROBINSON, J., dissenting. In deciding that policy concerns support the credit sought by employer in this case, the majority disregards the terms and structure of the workers' compensation statute, extends the authority of the Commissioner of the Department of Labor to matters well outside of the purview of the workers' compensation laws, disrupts existing contractual agreements and the ability of employers and disability insurers to enter into contracts for nonoccupational disability coverage, and creates unintended complexities in the calculation of workers' compensation benefits.

Absent statutory authority for applying an offset, the Commissioner has no authority to offset statutory workers' compensation benefits to account for transactions between employer and employee that took place outside of the workers' compensation proceedings. The majority's holding that not only authorizes, but apparently requires, the Commissioner to do so as a matter of law is inconsistent with our ordinary deference to the Commissioner on such matters, expands the Commissioner's responsibilities beyond her statutory authority and expertise, undermines the private contracts, introduces unnecessary complexity into the calculation of workers' compensation benefits, and expands this Court's prior decision on the subject far beyond its rationale and holding. I would affirm. I am authorized to state that Justice Dooley joins this dissent.