Georgia Law Blog

On June 20, 2007 the Georgia Court of Appeals issued a decision in the case of Renu Thrift Store Inc. VS. Figueroa. The case involved three primary issues. The first issue involves a credit for overpayment of benefits that the employer sought pursuant to O.C.G.A. §34-9-245. The employer in this case sought to take a credit against TTD payments for several years. It is interesting to note in this case that the employer admitted that they over calculated the claimants TTD rate. In this regard, the Court of Appeals held that the employer was not entitled to a credit for over payments. Any claim for reimbursement by an employer needs to be brought within two years of the date of overpayment according to O.C.G.A. §34-9-245.

The second issue decided in this case was whether or not the fifteen percent penalty found in O.C.G.A. §34-9-221(b) is appropriate when an employer insure sends income benefit checks bi-weekly rather than a weekly basis. The court in this case held that the penalty was appropriate. As I have discussed in other articles, a constant concern representing injured claimants throughout Georgia in workers’ compensation cases is that they do not receive their checks in a timely fashion. O.C.G.A. §34-9-221(b) provides that weekly benefits shall be due and payable in weekly installments.

In this case, the Court of Appeals sided with the claimant and the State Board of Workers’ Compensation was authorized to access the fifteen percent penalty for those weeks when the employer refused to pay the employees benefits on a weekly basis. It is important to note that the employer in this case argued that, included in each bi-weekly payment, was a payment for the current week as well as a payment for one week ahead. The Court of Appeals quickly dismissed this logic and emphasized that employer insurers are required to send out checks in a weekly fashion.