Nebraska: Profit from Small Business Does not Equate to “Wages” for AWW Pur-poses

Quoting Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the Supreme Court of Nebraska reversed a finding by a lower appellate court that had set the average weekly wage (AWW) of a business owner at $1,399.45, entitling the owner to the maximum compensation rate of $728 per week. It stressed that the net profits of the business were not the equivalent of wages earned—the business employed some 15 employees and had a net income during the year in question of almost $200,000. The Court noted further that the owner had listed self-employment wages of only $3,950 on his tax return and had indicated an additional $186,873 in income from “qualified production activities.” While the owner took a weekly draw of $3,625, that did not equate to wages.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Bortolotti v. Universal Terrazzo & Tile Co., 304 Neb. 219, 2019 Neb. LEXIS 151 (Oct. 11, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 93.01.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see