Kentucky: Self-Insurance Fund Responsible for 30 Percent Enhancement of Benefits for Insolvent Employer’s Safety Violation

Ky. Rev. Stat. Ann. 342.165(1), which provides for a 30 percent increase in workers’ compensation benefits where the workplace accident is caused in any degree by the intentional failure of the employer to comply with certain specific safety regulations, is not a penalty against the employer, but rather an award of benefits to the injured worker, held a state appellate court. Accordingly, the Kentucky Coal Employers Self-Insurance Fund was responsible for paying the full, enhanced amount of benefits to the surviving spouse and children of a minor killed in an accident that the Mine Safety and Review Commission determined to have been caused in part by the insolvent employer’s intentional violation of safety regulations.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis

See McCoy Elkhorn Coal Co. v. Sargent, 2017 Ky. App. LEXIS 619 (Oct. 13, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 102.04.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law