Law May Shortchange Some Injured Workers Man Hurt On Job Gets $11.19 A Week From Workers’ Comp

In Idaho, sometimes it is better to be flipping burgers than picking fruit.

A man who broke his ankle while picking cherries for a Nampa orchard last June received $11.19 a week from workers’ compensation to make up for wages he lost.

If he had suffered the same injury while working at a fast-food restaurant, the 47-year-old would have been paid most of his lost income, roughly $199 a week.

A technicality in a law designed to protect injured workers is behind the pay difference. It can short-change seasonal farmworkers like the cherry picker. In extreme cases those workers are being asked to live on a fraction of what they earned at work, sometimes less than 20 dollars a week.

State law requires most employers to have the insurance, which covers medical costs and lost wages for people injured on the job.

Farmworker advocates and politicians fought a long battle to require farmers to carry the insurance. In 1996, the Legislature stripped most agricultural companies of their exemption from the insurance.

But supporters of the bill say technicalities in Idaho’s law are unexpectedly letting some injured workers slip through the cracks.

“It’s just something that was missed,” said Daniel Ramirez, executive director of the Idaho Commission on Hispanic Affairs.

Part of the problem is a formula used to determine a worker’s average weekly wage, the basis for the calculation of how much money an injured worker gets for wages they lose.

For people with jobs they work at all year, the calculation is usually based on how much someone makes at the time of injury. If a cook earns $240 a week, his or her average weekly wage would be $240. The compensation check for every missed week of work would be $199.35, using a compensation bracket set by the state.

Workers with seasonal jobs, most commonly farm work like moving irrigation pipes or picking vegetables, have wages determined by what they made over the past 12 months. An insurance agent will add up the year’s wages, and divide by 50 to get the weekly wage.

Unlike many other Western states, Idaho has no limit on how low the average wage can fall. As a result, a person who should make $240 a week but has proof of only $621.50 earned over the year would qualify for just $11.19 every week, like the cherry picker.

The different formula was aimed at ensuring seasonal workers were not paid too much, said Jack Barrett, a Boise lawyer who handles workers’ comp cases.

If a person usually worked 6 months a year, but suffered an injury that lasted a year, they could make more money by not working, Barrett said.

Some say the Legislature should fine-tune Idaho’s laws to protect seasonal workers. Ramirez said he has begun discussing the issue with state legislators serving on the Hispanic commission’s board.

“It is my intention to bring this issue before them and see if we can present this to the state Legislature,” he said.