Summary of a Recent
Judicial Development in
Labor

Request for Workers' Compensation Benefits Barred by Statue of Limitations
for Claims Based on Changed Conditions

Walt McCarter
National AgLaw Center Research Associate

Summary of Decision

In Williams v. Conagra Poultry of Athens, 673 S.E.2d 105 (Ga. Ct. App. 2009), the Georgia Court of Appeals held that a workers' compensation claim for additional income benefits was barred by the applicable two-year statute of limitations for claims based on changed conditions.

Background

An injured Conagra employee had received temporary total disability benefits for the maximum allowable period of 400 weeks. Id. at 106. After those benefits ceased, the claimant petitioned the State Board of Workers' Compensation to change the designation of her injury to "catastrophic," so that she could continue receiving disability benefits. Id. The Board eventually approved her request. Id. at 106-07. Conagra agreed to pay medical benefits, and the parties submitted the issue of additional income benefits to an administrative law judge. Id. at 107. The judge determined that the expiration of the two-year statute of limitations in OCGA § 34-9-104(b) precluded additional income benefits, and the claimant appealed. Id.

Arguments

The claimant argued that the two-year limit for modifying disability income benefits in OCGA § 34-9-104(b) did not apply because she had not experienced a "change in condition" under that provision. Id.

Analysis and Holdings

Under OCGA § 34-9-104(b), "any party may apply . . . for another decision because of a change in condition ending, decreasing, increasing, or authorizing the recovery of income benefits . . . provided . . . that at the time of application not more than two years have elapsed since the date the last payment of income benefits . . . ." Id. The previous subsection defined "change in condition" as a "change in the wage-earning capacity, physical condition, or status of an employee." Id. The court found that the claimant's request for catastrophic injury designation constituted a request for a change in status subject to the two-year statute of limitations. Id. Therefore, because her request for additional income benefits was made more than two years after the last income payment was made, her request was barred as untimely. Id.

The case was decided on January 28, 2009.