SENATE FILE _____

BY  (PROPOSED COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND BUSINESS RELATIONS BILL BY CHAIRPERSON HORN)

A BILL FOR

An Act requiring additional workers’ compensation payments for scheduled injuries that result in a reduction in the injured employee’s earning capacity.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF IOWA:

   Section 1.  Section 85.34, subsection 2, Code 2011, is amended by adding the following new paragraph:
   NEW PARAGRAPH.  w.  If an employee sustains an injury described in paragraphs“a” through“t” and is unable to return to employment providing substantially similar earnings to the earnings provided in the employment in which the employee was engaged at the time of the injury, compensation shall be paid during the number of weeks in relation to five hundred weeks as the reduction in the employee’s earning capacity bears in relation to the earning capacity that the employee possessed when the injury occurred. If the employee is permanently and totally disabled as a result of such an injury the employee may be entitled to benefits under subsection 3.
   Sec. 2.  Section 85.64, Code 2011, is amended to read as follows:
   85.64  Limitation of benefits.
   1.  If an employee who has previously lost, or lost the use of, one hand, one arm, one foot, one leg, or one eye, becomes permanently disabled by a compensable injury which has resulted in the loss of or loss of use of another such member or organ and which does not cause the employee to be eligible for benefits under section 85.34, subsection 2, paragraph “w”, the employer shall be liable only for the degree of disability which would have resulted from the latter injury if there had been no preexisting disability. In addition to such compensation, and after the expiration of the full period provided by law for the payments thereof by the employer, the employee shall be paid out of the“Second Injury Fund” created by this division the remainder of such compensation as would be payable for the degree of permanent disability involved after first deducting from such remainder the compensable value of the previously lost member or organ.
   2.  Any benefits received by any such employee, or to which the employee may be entitled, by reason of such increased disability from any state or federal fund or agency, to which said employee has not directly contributed, shall be regarded as a credit to any award made against said second injury fund as aforesaid.
EXPLANATION
   This bill amends Code section 85.34 to provide that for purposes of workers’ compensation, an employee who sustains a scheduled injury and is unable to return to employment providing substantially similar earnings to that of the preinjury employment earning capacity, shall be paid compensation during the number of weeks in relation to 500 weeks as the reduction in the employee’s earning capacity caused by the disability bears in relation to the earning capacity that the employee possessed when the injury occurred.
   The bill also amends Code section 85.64 to provide that an employee who has previously sustained a loss of a body part and then becomes permanently disabled when that injury is combined with a second compensable injury is entitled to compensation out of the state second injury fund as long as that second compensable injury alone does not cause the employee to be unable to return to substantially similar employment and thus be eligible for benefits under the new paragraph “w” in Code section 85.34(2).