Committee OKs aid cap for work-related injuries

450-week ceiling clears Senate committee

A scaled-back attempt to cap work-related total disability benefits cleared a Senate committee Wednesday.

Senate Bill 682, sponsored by Sen. David Sanders, R-Little Rock, would end after 450 weeks such disability payments to workers injured on the job. The 450 weeks is about eight years and eight months.

The cap wouldn’t apply, however, to cases of “catastrophic physical injury,” including injury resulting in paralysis, brain damage and total blindness.

Another bill, House Bill 1586, also would cap total disability benefits at 450 weeks, but wouldn’t contain the exception for catastrophic physical injury.

Unlike SB682, the House bill also would impose the 450-week cap on benefits to survivors of workers killed on the job.

Sanders told the Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee that his bill would address concerns that HB1586 would “leave some [people] in the lurch.”

Rep. John Payton, R-Wilburn, the sponsor of HB1586, was listed as a co-sponsor of SB682 along with Sen. Jason Rapert, R-Bigelow.

The cap has been proposed as a way to keep down premiums for workers’ compensation insurance.

HB1586, which passed the House last month, is opposed by the Arkansas AFL-CIO, which says it would create a hardship for some injured workers and their families.

Alan Hughes, the organization’s president, told the Senate committee the organization’s attorneys haven’t had time to study SB682.

The committee recommended approval of the bill in a divided voice vote.

HB1586 also has cleared the committee but has not been approved by the full Senate.

Rapert said Wednesday on the Senate floor that he’s working with fellow Republican Sen. Greg Standridge of Russellville to address concerns about HB1586.

Standridge told the Senate committee he opposes SB682.

Because the state’s workers’ compensation law was approved by voters in 1948, amending it requires approval by a two-thirds majority in the House and Senate.