New York Workers Compensation Alliance

Earlier this year the County of Erie adopted a new and novel way to harass injured workers – requiring them to pick up their workers’ compensation checks in person.  The County issued the following statement to its injured employees:  “Please be advised that as of July 8, 2010, you will no longer receive your bi-weekly indemnity payment by mail. After such date, you will be required to personally pick up your bi-weekly payments” during limited hours on Thursdays or Fridays.”  The County told workers that its new policy was that “all employees … who receive bi-weekly indemnity payments … will no longer receive such payments via US Mail. Claimants must personally pick up their bi-weekly payments pursuant to County Department guidelines.”

The Workers’ Compensation Law requires employers and carriers to pay benefits “periodically and promptly in like manner as wages.”  Payments are required to be made at set intervals, and there are penalties for late payment.  The Board, employers, and carriers have always understood that the law required compensation checks to be mailed – until Erie County decided that it could make its own rules.

In a unanimous decision, the Board has told Erie County that it is wrong.  After outlining the legal reasons why the County’s policy is illegal, the Board wrote:

“Finally, the policy violates the spirit and intent of the WCL. It places an additional burden upon an injured worker at a time when the claimant is not medically able to return to the workplace. To assert post-injury control over the employee by requiring an injured worker to pick up the compensation check at the place of employment overly burdens an injured worker by adding unnecessary traveling costs and potentially places an injured worker at risk of further injury. The compensation law was enacted to assist claimants at a time of hardship, not add to their burdens unnecessarily.”

The WCA applauds the Board’s stand on this issue, which is a welcome return to the role of the Board as the defender of the injured and disabled worker.

Shockingly, the Erie County Executive still doesn’t seem to understand that the County cannot make up its own rules, and has been quoted saying that “It doesn't matter to us what the Workers Compensation Board says. Quite frankly, they don't matter."  See the video.

If the County defies the Board’s order, then we look forward to swift and decisive action by the office of Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo.