Opinion ID: 1476757
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Employees' Additional Statutory Remedy

Text: Consistent with the purpose of providing employees prompt relief for work-related injuries, Delaware's Workers' Compensation Statute established the IAB to hear, determine and award or deny benefits. After an award is made by the IAB, in certain limited situations the IAB may enter sanctions against an insurer that fails to make the compensation payments as due. [15] Nothing in the Delaware Workers' Compensation laws, however, gives the IAB the power to grant relief to an employee beyond requiring the payment of past due compensation amounts from the insurer. The facts alleged in McDougall's complaint dramatically illustrate the kind of protracted delays in payments to an employee of an IAB award that the Delaware Workers' Compensation laws were designed to eliminate. The General Assembly anticipated that such aberrational conduct by an employer or its workers' compensation insurance carrier might periodically occur. In Huffman, this Court recognized that an additional statutory remedy is available to employees when employers wrongfully withhold, suspend or terminate compensation that has been awarded by the IAB. The General Assembly has expressly provided for the collection of amounts due following an award by the IAB under the Delaware Workers' Compensation laws in the same manner provided for the collection of wages. Section 2357 of the Workers' Compensation statute provides: If default is made by the employer for 30 days after demand in the payment of any amount due under this chapter, the amount may be recovered in the same manner as claims for wages are collectible. Pursuant to section 2357, an employee with a claim based on the employer's alleged failure to pay compensation due after proper demand has been made, may elect to pursue an action under Chapter 11 of Title 19. Jurisdiction over claims brought under Chapter 11 is conferred by Del.Code Ann. tit. 19, § 1113(a) which provides: A civil action to recover unpaid wages and liquidated damages may be maintained in any court of competent jurisdiction. In Huffman, we held that in order to give effect to the provisions of section 2357, the reference in section 1113(a) to `wages' must be construed to include claims based on unpaid workmen's compensation benefits due after proper demand therefor has been made. [16] Section 1113(a) grants jurisdiction over such cases to any court of competent jurisdiction, which includes the Superior Court where McDougall filed his civil action. Section 1113(a) does not confer jurisdiction over workers' compensation claims arising under section 2357 and Chapter 11, upon the IAB. Thus, only a court of competent jurisdiction and not the IAB has authority to entertain workers' compensation claims arising under section 2357 and Chapter 11. In Huffman, we stated that this jurisdictional distinction is important because the relief available to an employee under Chapter 11 is broader than the relief that is otherwise available from the IAB in cases such as McDougall's. [17] The only relief that the IAB may grant to an employee is an order that the employer or insurer pay all past due compensation that has been wrongfully withheld. That relief is also available in any court-filed action under Chapter 11. However, Del.Code Ann. tit. 19, § 1103(b) provides that in a proper case: the employer shall, in addition, be liable to the employee for liquidated damages in the amount of 10 percent of the unpaid wages for each day, except Sunday and legal holidays, upon which such failure continues after the day upon which payment is required or in an amount equal to the unpaid wages, whichever is smaller. . . . Del.Code Ann. tit. 19, § 1113(c) also provides that if an employee is entitled to a judgment under Chapter 11, the judgment shall include an award for the costs of the action, the necessary costs of prosecution and reasonable attorney's fees, all to be paid by the defendant.