Workers Comp Settlement - Unemployment Compensation?
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We have an employee who just agreed to settle his claim. He had 5 hernia operations throughout the 14 years he worked here, and some other problems between co-workers and managers, which ultimately led him to want to "get out" and settle his claim. This has been of course entirely voluntary on his part, and the company agrees that this is the best course of action for us as well. The problems I'm having are these: this employee is also asking about his eligibility to obtain unemployment compensation after he signs his papers with the w.c. carrier. My understanding is that if an employee agrees to settle, he is in effect resigning his employment with the company voluntarily, so wouldn't that make him ineligible for u.comp. benefits? Secondly, he has asked that his health insurance with our company be kept for 6 months, which is what we offer to laid off employees (we laid off about 50 employees recently), and I told him that he was not laid off so he would be treated as any other settlement case, which is basically that once he signs his "resignation" papers, he has insurance until the end of that month, and then he's on cobra. He is saying that he heard from a supervisor's wife, (who happens to be his sister, and the supervisor and he have been at war with each other for about 10 years!), that once he was released to return to work full duty (we didn't have any light duty due to our slow-down in work/layoffs), he was going to be laid off, and that the only reason he was not yet laid off was because he was out on w. comp.
And it gets more sticky.....When his doctor did finally release him to return to work, he had already agreed to settle his case, so as is our custom here, we don't have employees return to work after that due to conflict of interest etc., and our carrier had always agreed that was fine to do. So we did that again this time, but we truly did not have any work for him to do even if he had wanted to come back. So he's saying that he should then be officially laid off so that he can get the same benefits as other laid off employees. He does have a point, but yet, he was never officially laid off, and other than a rumor, there is no proof of that. The w.c. adjuster suggested to him that due to our lack of work he should be able to pick up u.comp. and she told him to discuss the other issue re his health insurance with me because he was really unofficially laid off.......What should we do?
I would appreciate any advice anyone may have for me in this area.
And it gets more sticky.....When his doctor did finally release him to return to work, he had already agreed to settle his case, so as is our custom here, we don't have employees return to work after that due to conflict of interest etc., and our carrier had always agreed that was fine to do. So we did that again this time, but we truly did not have any work for him to do even if he had wanted to come back. So he's saying that he should then be officially laid off so that he can get the same benefits as other laid off employees. He does have a point, but yet, he was never officially laid off, and other than a rumor, there is no proof of that. The w.c. adjuster suggested to him that due to our lack of work he should be able to pick up u.comp. and she told him to discuss the other issue re his health insurance with me because he was really unofficially laid off.......What should we do?
I would appreciate any advice anyone may have for me in this area.
