On October 18, the Association of Washington Business (AWB), along with the Associated General Contractors of Washington and the Washington State Farm Bureau, filed an amicus curiae (friend-of-the-court) brief to the Washington State Supreme Court to request that they overturn their landmark workers’ comp decision from 2001, Cockle v. Dept. of Labor & Industries. In lieu of overturning Cockle, AWB asked the High Court to refuse to extend the troublesome ruling.

Cockle decision changed the historic approach set by the Legislature in 1971 for calculating payments to injured workers while they are off work. It is called time-loss benefits. In Cockle, the court held that time-loss benefits must be calculated not only with an injured worker’s wages, but also any health or dental insurance benefits the employer paid on behalf of the worker. Previously, the practice of the Department of Labor & Industries was to calculate time-loss and other workers’ comp benefits based only on workers’ wages and not wages plus fringe benefits paid by the employer.

Cockle applies to employers regardless of whether they are self-insured or buy their workers’ comp coverage from the state.”Cockle added costs to the state fund and played a major role in the proposed double-digit rate increases that were announced in 2002 and 2003. If this weren’t bad enough, the decision also left the door open to further litigation over whether other fringe benefits such as retirement, training programs, life and disability insurance, and vacation should also be included as wages’ under workers’ comp,” AWB President Don Brunell said.

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