Bugbee and Conkle, LLP will be hosting a two-part workers’ compensation basics webinar series. Part one of the series will be presented by Deborah E. Bensch and Emma N. Renius on August 20, 2025 at 11 a.m. and will focus on the initial allowance of a workers’ compensation claim, including investigation of a workplace injury, agency proceedings, and what constitutes an injury. Part two of this series will be scheduled in September, 2025 and will focus on different forms of compensation in a workers’ compensation claim including temporary total disability compensation, permanent total disability compensation, working wage loss compensation and nonworking wage loss compensation, and more. We are excited to hold this “back to basics” series as a precursor to our in-person firm seminar on October 17, 2025. Our in-person seminar will discuss various labor and employment and workers’ compensation topics surrounding one nightmarish fact scenario. Please use the link below to register for our seminar!
https://www.eventbrite.com/e/nightmare-on-claim-street-tickets-1530332388369?aff=oddtdtcreator
Tenth District Court of appeals clarifies position on payment of temporary total disability compensation in the summer for teachers and other school employees.
In State ex rel. Columbus Schools, Columbus Board of Education v. Mizer, 2025-Ohio-2234 (10th Dist.) decided June 26, 2025, claimant, sustained an industrial injury on August 30, 2021 and was granted temporary total disability compensation (TTD). Claimant, a public school employee, received “stretch pay” which allowed her to have her wages earned over the 9 month school year stretched over 12 months. Her average weekly wage was calculated based on the stretch pay amount. The employer filed a motion to terminate TTD compensation on June 3, 2022, the last day of the school year, because she does not work during the summer months. The DHO and SHO granted the employer’s motion, finding the claimant was not scheduled to work in the summer and had no earnings to replace but the Industrial Commission accepted the issue for a reconsideration hearing and vacated the SHO order and denied the company’s motion to terminate TTD.
The employer filed a mandamus action in the 10th District Court of Appeals and the Court denied the writ finding the commission had “some evidence” to support its order continuing TTD over the summer. The Court relied on R.C. 4123.56(F), effective September 15, 2020, finding an employee is entitled to receive TTD if she is unable to work or suffers a wage loss as the direct result of an impairment arising from an injury. The court emphasized the stretch pay she was to receive during the summer was to compensate her for work that would have been completed during the school year but for her injury. The court went on to discuss State ex rel. Crim v. Ohio BWC, 92 Ohio St.3d 481, (2001) which previously required a teacher to prove he or she intended to work during the summer months but could not due to his or her industrial injury before he or she was eligible to receive temporary total during the summer months. The Mizer court held Crim was not applicable since intention to work during the summer was only relevant to the discussion of the voluntary abandonment doctrine, and R.C. 4123.56(F) superseded all prior caselaw on voluntary abandonment. The Court found the claimant was not precluded from receiving TTD because her prorated earnings would have continued to be paid over the summer months had she not suffered an industrial injury.
Finally, the Court found the Industrial Commission did not err when it relied on State ex rel. Glenn v. Indus. Comm. of Ohio, 122 Ohio St.3d 483, 2009-Ohio-3627 which stands for the proposition that a teacher was eligible for TTD during the summer if she did not receive prorated wages or stretch pay from her teaching job during the summer. Because the claimant in Mizer did not receive her stretch pay because of her injury she was entitled to TTD over the summer.
Claimant’s stretch pay was designed to compensate her for the work she would have completed over the school year had she not been injured. Therefore, TTD was still payable over the summer.