‘Odd Lot’ Thrown Out in Thomas v. Board of Education
Wednesday, April 08, 2009 Filed in: New
Jersey|
Workers
Compensation| Total
Disability| Second Injury
Fund|
Trial
Proofs
The “Odd Lot” doctrine permits an employee to recover
benefits when a work-related injury, in combination
with “personal factors” creates a total disability.
What is a “personal factor”? The doctrine, traceable
to line of cases, defines a ‘personal factor’ as “a
personal handicap.”
The ‘personal handicap’ is not a physical limitation. For employees that have a pre-existing disability, and then become totally disabled as a result of their pre-existing disability and a workplace accident, Second Injury Fund benefits are available.
The ‘Odd Lot’ doctrine refers to ‘personal handicaps’ for other-than-physical conditions. The cases law states that a worker is eligible for Odd Lot benefits when “viewed in the context of the market place, his inability to sell his labor is traceable to his personal background superimposed on his physical disability.”
Qualifying “Odd Lot” conditions are:
The ‘personal handicap’ is not a physical limitation. For employees that have a pre-existing disability, and then become totally disabled as a result of their pre-existing disability and a workplace accident, Second Injury Fund benefits are available.
The ‘Odd Lot’ doctrine refers to ‘personal handicaps’ for other-than-physical conditions. The cases law states that a worker is eligible for Odd Lot benefits when “viewed in the context of the market place, his inability to sell his labor is traceable to his personal background superimposed on his physical disability.”
Qualifying “Odd Lot” conditions are:
Illiteracy;
Inability to speak English;
Low intelligence;
Lack of formal education;
Low job skill transferability;
Lack of training.
Other.
‘Odd Lot’ claims have one other prerequisite: before the ‘Odd Lot’ doctrine can be triggered, the claimant’s disability relative to the work accident must be at least 75% of total. That is to say, the physical disability must be significantly (and nearly totally) disabling by itself. This reduces the opportunity for fraud and abuse by litigants who would “trump up” their alleged ‘personal handicaps.’ Also, in a state with a large illiterate/non-English-speaking worker population (New Jersey released ‘official’ state figures last week admitting to at least 500,000 undocumented foreign nationals living and working in New Jersey) the potential for abuse of the ‘Odd Lot’ provision is present.
In a March 4, 2009 decision, the Appellate Court found that the petitioner in Thomas v. Newark Board of Education had no grounds to appeal based on the Judge’s refusal to apply the ‘Odd Lot’ doctrine and find him totally disabled. In Thomas, the claimant alleged that all of his prior work experience was in heavy manual labor jobs and that he lacked job skills.
The Comp Judge refused to listen to that argument, and found the claimant only 22.5% disabled, and so the ‘Odd Lot’ doctrine was not applied.
