A provision within North Carolina’s recent state budget has the potential to bring an end to two ongoing legal battles pertaining to disability benefit payments. Lawyers from the state’s Department of Justice have appealed to the state’s highest court, urging the justices to consider the budget law as they assess these cases.

Two cases involve Cherry Hospital and the Department of Health and Human Services as defendants, and the Department of Public Safety as the defendant in the other case. In both instances, lawyers representing state government agencies have requested the Supreme Court to overturn decisions made earlier this year by the state Court of Appeals.

The core issue in these cases pertains to a 500-week limit for “temporary total disability” benefits, as defined in state law.

“In 2011, as part of a broader reform of the State’s laws that govern workers’ compensation, the General Assembly made a deliberate adjustment to this rule with the aim of constraining the duration of “temporary total disability” benefits. According to attorneys from the state Justice Department, this revision specifies that these benefits are only accessible for the initial 500 weeks following the onset of a claimant’s disability. Beyond this 500-week period, after the 500-week mark, claimants can still receive benefits, but they must provide evidence of a complete inability to earn wages. Nevertheless, prior to reaching this 500-week threshold, claimants could secure benefits with a less rigorous proof of total disability.

State lawyers said that the 2011 law required a stronger proof of disability for benefits beyond 500 weeks. But in Sturdivant v. NC Department of Public Safety and Betts v. NC Department of Health and Human Services, the Court of Appeals made a mistake by using the same criteria for both periods before and after 500 weeks, missing the law’s specific intent.

A brief paragraph within the 625-page state budget law addresses the dispute, clarifying the meaning of “total loss of wage-earning capacity” as “the complete elimination of the capacity to earn any wages,” in line with the legislature’s original intent.

State attorneys argued that this clarification should be applied to claims that were accrued or pending before the amendment’s effective date, including the cases under consideration.

The court filing anticipated arguments from plaintiffs regarding the retroactive application of this amendment, despite its alignment with the original legislative intent in 2011.

In the event that the state Supreme Court chooses not to accept these two cases, state government lawyers urged the justices to invalidate the Appeals Court decisions to prevent confusion, emphasizing that the Court of Appeals made its rulings without the benefit of the legislative clarification.

The court document also emphasized the possible financial consequences of a different interpretation, underlining the importance of having a stable and predictable workers’ compensation system in the state.