Idaho Law Blog
On June 8, 1992 the Idaho Supreme Court filed their decision in the case Osick v. Public Employee Retirement System of Idaho, 122 Idaho 457, 835 P. 2d 1268 (1992). Mr Osick was an employee of the Ada County Highway District from 1959 until he was injured in 1986. He filed a workers’ compensation claim and negotiated a lump-sum settlement of $24,667.50 plus $500 per month in compensation for his injury. Since Mr. Osick was a public employee he qualified for disability benefits under the Public Employee Retirement System which is known as PERSI. He was awarded disability benefits from PERSI in the amount of $903.60 per month. Pursuant to Idaho Code Section 59-1320 (1b), PERSI was able to offset Mr. Osick’s disability benefits in the amount that he received each month from his workers’ compensation claim. Mr. Osick petitioned the PERSI Board for a hearing, contending that in light of the case Deonier v. Public Employee Retirement Board 114 Idaho 721, 760 P. 2d 1137 (1988), that there should be no offset to his PERSI disability benefits by his workers’ compensation benefits. The Idaho Supreme Court disagreed and held that Idaho code Section 59-1320 (1), which was later recodified at Idaho Section 59-1353 (1) was not in disagreement with Idaho Code Section 72-318. The Idaho Supreme Court noted that the PERSI Statute was coordinated so that if the employee were to receive any annual workers’ compensation benefits under the same disability that the PERSI disability benefits would be offset by the workers’ compensation benefits.
The importance of this decision to public employees is that workers’ compensation benefits often provide little or no benefit to them because they just offset the PERSI disability benefits until that public employee goes on to his or her PERSI retirement benefits. I have been able to negotiate around this offset in the past. If you are a public employee and are injured as a result of an Idaho workers’ compensation claim, please contact me so that we can explore legally creative ways to get around this offset to your PERSI disability benefits.