Jerry Lay v. Scott County Sheriff's Dept

The primary issue in this workers' compensation appeal is whether the attainment of maximum medical improvement is a necessary factor in determining whether there has been a meaningful return to work under Tennessee Code Annotated section 50-6-241. The trial court found that since the pre-injury employer returned the employee to work at a lower wage than his pre-injury wage, Section 50-6-241(a)(1) did not apply, and the trial court set the employee's permanent partial disability award based on 60% to the body as a whole, approximately 4.6 times the employee's 13% impairment rating. We reverse the trial court and find that where an employee has had a meaningful return to work for five months, resigns for reasons unrelated to his injury, and then returns to the same employer a year later at a lower wage, the employee may not take advantage of this statute by arguing that he has not had a meaningful return to work. Thus, Section 50-6-241(a)(1) applies to limit the employee's recovery to two and one-half times his impairment rating, and the employee's award is modified to 32.5% permanent partial disability to the body as a whole.