Bills propose presumption against voluntary withdrawal from labor market
Bills in New York that would presume that an injured worker who has not refused an offer of reemployment has not voluntarily withdrawn from the labor market, according to under bills referred to committees in both chambers of the Legislature.
Memos for both S.B. 6372 and A.B. 732 say the measures are intended to prevent insurance carriers from denying benefits to injured workers based on an alleged voluntary withdrawal from the labor market unless workers refuse reemployment.
Injured workers must maintain attachment to the labor market to continue receiving indemnity benefits. A statement of justification included with the Senate measure describes attachment as “a legal fiction” that assumes injured workers could find employment consistent with the limitations caused by their injury.
Injured workers struggle to secure light-duty work with a new employer, and employers-at-injury are not required to offer it, according to the memo. The result is that the state’s comp system requires injured workers to seek work they can’t reasonably expect to find to continue receiving benefits.
“If injured workers stop seeking work or fail to properly document their search, insurance carriers can and do shirk their responsibility to provide for injured workers by claiming that those injured workers have voluntarily withdrawn from the labor market,” the memo reads. “This bill would correct that inequity.”
The justification statement also says the bill could reduce frictional costs for employers associated with litigating these issues. Those frictional costs are usually considered losses for the purposes of setting premiums and are passed directly to employers, according to the memo.
Similar measures have been introduced each year since 2018 and never passed out of their house of origin.
WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.
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