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Dear Julie: When a Worker’s Second Job Impacts Your Claim Costs
Workers’ compensation questions can get complicated fast. In our new Dear Julie series, Julie Nichols, outside counsel for BIAW’s ROII® program, answers common questions contractors and employers face when navigating Washington’s workers’ compensation system. Julie has been practicing law and helping building industry employers navigate Washington’s unique workers’ compensation laws and regulations for nearly 20 years, bringing practical insight to real-world claim situations ROII participants encounter every day. DEAR JULIE: Our company has a worker with an open claim for a knee injury. We just received the wage order in the mail and it is $3,000 per month more than we expected based on what his salary was here. His monthly salary was $4,000 working for us and the wage order has $7,000.00. We are being told it includes income from his second job/side business. We know this is what determines his time loss rate, and therefore also impacts our EMR and L&I rates. Can this be right? His income from his other job is also assigned to us? -- Blindsided by the Side Hustle DEAR BLINDSIDED: Yes. If the worker was working a second job at the time he was injured while working for your company, the value of that other income is also included in the wage computation, which, as you say, determines his time loss amount. RCW 51.08.178 is the statute that L&I uses to compute monthly wages; you will see it contains the language “all employment at the time of injury.” L&I has specific policies guiding wage calculations, and there are other factors that will affect it, for example, the period of time he worked at the second job and whether it is a side business where the “wages” are not easily defined. If your worker has a side business or second job, this can make a huge difference! Please note that the Q&A exchanges shared in Dear Julie are hypothetical scenarios loosely based on claims and cases that ROII staff handle daily. This information should not be considered legal advice. If you have a specific question or claim concern, please contact your ROII claim representative and/or your attorney.
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