Agenda - Council - 09/28/1982 - Laserfiche WebLink

Home

I I I I I I I I I I I I I I Mr. Schnelle September 8, 1982 Page Two at 30% permanent partial disability. The chances that he would have been declared a permanately and totally disabled employee were very great and in that posture, Mr. Buchite would have been intitled to weekly compensation benefits of $238.50 (escalated 6% annually) for the rest of his life. Had we not settled his claim on a compromise basis, and the case had been litigated to a judge's decision and we had lost, we would have had to pay a total of $36,264.40 just to pay the claim on a to-date basis. Then we would have been faced with future exposure which we antici- pated wou].d have been as a permanent and total disability case. Hr. Buchite has a 15 year ].ife expectancy and had we paid this claim for that life expectancy, with the annual excalation, our total exposure would have been $288,668.95. From that amount, we would have been able to offset the weekly disability workers compensation benefits by whatever social security disability Mr. Buchite received after we had paid $25,000.00 in weekly indemnity benefits (not including the permanent impairment benefits). To what extent that offset would exsist we are not able to determine at this point. Please understand that we agree with you that the settlement paid in this clhim was a substantial amount of money. We do not take these cases lightly and our staff, including our legal counsel, reviews these cases in light of our statuatory law and the prevailing liberal atmosphere amoung judges at the workers compensation division. With the evidence contained in our file, it was our considered opinion that our best course of action was to settle this on the basis mentioned. I hope that this gives you an answer to the questions that you have raised, but if not, please let me know and I will be happy to discuss it with you further. Yours very truly Asst. Claim Manager RAL/jt ce: Terry Pettipiece, Workers Comp. Supt. Insurance Service Center