Fish: Staff’ Compensation Act Gives Sole Treatment for Late Indemnity Funds| Staff Compensation Information

By Mike Fish

Wednesday, March 3, 2021 | 16 | 0 | min read

On Friday, the Alabama Court of Appeals released its position on three petitions for Mandamus that arose out of a contempt lawsuit.

Mike Fish

In particular, the plaintiff was granted a permanent and full disability pension in a lawsuit against his employer in 2012. In 2020, the employee filed a retrospective application for contempt due to the alleged systematic late payment of his weekly benefits.

Although the lion’s share of the opinion related to procedural and jurisdictional issues that are not specific to compensation for workers, Judge Terry Moore, in his dissenting opinion, indicated that if compensation payments were delayed, lawmakers have already taken remedial action.

Alabama Code Section 25-5-59 (b) provides an automatic 15% penalty if an indemnity payment owed is not paid within 30 days.

Furthermore, Section 25-5-86 (1) provides that if an employer fails to meet his obligation to pay compensation payments, the employee can apply for the remaining payments to be accelerated, reduced to their present value and paid at a flat rate.

Because of this, Judge Moore believed that the Alabama Workers’ Compensation Act prevents an employee from using contempt procedure as an additional remedy if compensation payments are not made in a timely manner.

Mike Fish is an attorney at Fish Nelson & Holden LLC based in Birmingham, Alabama. This entry is republished with permission from the company’s Alabama Workers’ Comp Blawg.