Court Upholds Widows' Workers' Comp Benefits
By Associated Press - June 13, 2006CHARLESTON, W Virginia (AP)_ The state Supreme Court has upheld lifelong workers' compensation benefits for the widows of workers killed on the job or who died from workplace illnesses.
The court ruled Monday that widows are entitled to the benefits unless they remarry.
The ruling came in a dispute over a policy adopted by the Workers' Compensation Commission in 2004 that allowed it to refuse to pay benefits to survivors after their deceased spouses would have reached 70. If benefits were awarded before 2003, those benefits could be cut off after the deceased spouses would have reached 65.
The policy was never approved either by the Performance Council, which then oversaw Workers' Compensation, or by the Legislature. The Workers' Compensation Commission has since become BrickStreet Mutual Insurance Co., a private company.
In April, Gov. Joe Manchin directed Insurance Commissioner Jane Cline to restore the benefits that were cut off because of the policy.
Charleston attorney John Skaggs, who represents some of the spouses, told the Supreme Court in May that the directive was not enough to protect the benefits.
"I am glad to see the Supreme Court made it absolutely, abundantly clear that the statute was clear and unambiguous,'' Skaggs said Monday.
"I hope that the insurance commissioner, BrickStreet and other companies that are managing these claims will take this as a reminder they must to apply the statute as it is written and not as they want it to be written.''
The plaintiffs included the widows of four victims of January's Sago Mine disaster.
"Some of us were worried about going to the Supreme Court,'' Sherry Grubb, one of the plaintiffs, said Monday. "I think the decision is great -- not just for me but for all the widows.''
"We got national attention after the miners at Sago were killed,'' Grubb said. "And we were able to help a lot of feeble widows up in the hollows who were unaware what was being done to them. If people don't start standing up, people will walk all over us.''
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