Workers' Compensation Law Summaries
Utah, Workers' Compensation Law Summaries
Utah's workers' compensation law is located in the Utah Code Annotated at Title 34A, Chapter 2, Part 1–Part 8.
COVERAGE
Coverage is compulsory for all employment in Utah if the employer has one or more employee. Specifically included are members of the National Guard, a lessee or lessor in a mine or of mining property and each employee or sublessee, partners and sole proprietors (who may elect coverage) and corporate officers (unless the corporation elects to exclude them).
The client company in an employee leasing arrangement is considered the employer for workers' compensation coverage purposes, but the coverage may be underwritten by the leasing company's insurer (Sec. 34A-2-104).
Employees engaged in interstate or foreign commerce to the extent that the connection with intrastate work is clearly separable from the interstate or foreign commerce (Sec. 34A-2-109).
All public employees are covered under the law (Sec. 34A-2-103).
EXCEPTIONS
Not covered are agricultural workers who are members of the employer's immediate family, domestics who work less than 40 hours per week, prisoners and offenders performing labor, real estate salespersons and brokers working on a commission basis and insurance sales persons and brokers working on a commission basis. Domestics working for persons who receive their services under a state or federal program designed to prevent them from being placed in a more restrictive placement or in an institution are also excepted, although they may become “employees” if the employer complies with the workers' compensation and occupational disease laws (Secs. 34A-2-103 and 34A-2-104).
WHAT THE EMPLOYER MUST DO
Insurance choices.- Employers may insure with the state fund, self-insure or purchase insurance from a private insurance carrier (Sec. 34A-2-201). The insurer may require an employer with an experience modification factor of 1.00 or higher to establish a workplace safety program (sec. 34a-2-111).
Waiting period.- No compensation is allowed for the first three days after an injury, but compensation is payable for those days if temporary total disability lasts more than 14 days (Sec. 34A-2-408).
Reports and records.- Every July every employer must file a report with the division indicating the number of employees in classes of employment and the scale of wages (Sec. 34A-2-206).
Offset provisions.- In Utah, after the first 312 weeks of permanent total disability payments have been made, future payments are reduced by the dollar amount of 50 percent of the Social Security retirement benefits received by an employee during the same period. In addition, weekly death benefits for wholly dependent spouses are reduced after the first six-year period following an employee's death by 50 percent of any federal Social Security death benefits.
Premium discounts.- A self-insured employer may offset against its annual assessment an amount equal to the lesser of its total qualified donations to an occupational health and safety center an .10 percent of total calculated premium (Sec. 34A-2-202.5).
Drug and alcohol use.- Except when the employer permitted, encouraged or had actual knowledge of the following conduct, no disability compensation will be awarded to an employee when the major contributing cause of the injury or occupational disease is the employee's use of illegal substances; intentional abuse of drugs in excess of prescribed therapeutic amounts; or intoxication from alcohol with a blood or breath alcohol concentration of .08 grams or greater, as shown by a chemical test.
NOTICE
Any employee sustaining an injury arising out of and in the course of employment must provide notification to the employee's employer promptly. If the employee is unable to provide the required notification, the employee's next-of-kin or attorney may do so. An employee is barred for any claim of benefits arising from an injury if the employee fails to notify the employer or the Division of Industrial Accidents within 180 days of the day on which the injury occurs or, in the case of an occupational hearing loss, the time period specified in Sec. 34A-2-506 (Sec. 34A-2-407).
Each insurer or self-insured employer that issues checks to pay compensation must imprint the checks above the endorsement area the statement, “Workers' compensation insurance fraud is a crime punishable by Utah law.” (Sec. 34A-2-110). When it appears an injured worker will be a disabled worker or when the worker's temporary total disability period exceeds 90 days, the employer or its carrier must file a report with the division and the worker assessing the worker's need for vocational rehabilitation (Sec. 34A-2-106).
POSTING
Each employer providing workers' compensation insurance or electing directly to pay compensation to its injured or the dependents of its employees who are killed, must post in conspicuous places about its place of business typewritten or printed notices stating that the employer has complied with the provisions of the workers' compensation law (Sec. 34A-2-204).
See also ¶46-9900 .
PENALTIES
Compensation is increased by 15 percent when injury is caused by a willful failure of an employer to comply with the law or its own written workplace safety program (Sec. 34A-2-301). Compensation is reduced by 15 percent, except in case of injury resulting in death, when injury is caused by the employee's willful failure to use safety devices, obey any reasonable safety rule of the employer, or subject to certain limitations, when the major contributing cause of the injury is the employee's use of a controlled substance or alcohol intoxication of .08 grams or greater in a blood or breath alcohol concentration (Sec. 34A-2-302). A similar reduction applies to occupational disease cases (Sec. 34A-2-112).
An employee's right to have a claim for compensation considered is suspended during a refusal to submit to or obstruction of a required medical examination (Sec. 34A-2-602).
An employer who is not self-insured is prohibited from paying benefits directly to or for an employee. The division can fine an employer $1,000 for a first violation or $5,000 for subsequent violations (Sec. 34A-2-201.3 as amended by UT SB 58, L. 2008).
Workers' compensation fraud includes intentionally, knowingly or recklessly devising a scheme to use a false or fraudulent pretense, representation, promise or material omission to obtain a thing of value. Penalties are based on the value of the fraud or the number of people deprived of benefits, whichever measure creates the larger penalty (Sec. 34A-2-110, as amended by UT SB 159, L. 2008).
CONTACTS
Division of industrial Accidents 160 East 300 South, 3rd Floor P O Box 146610 Salt Lake City UT 84114-6610 Phone: (801) 530-6800 Fax: (801) 530-6804 In-state Toll Free 1-800-530-5090 iaccd@utah.gov.
<p>Division of industrial Accidents 160 East 300 South, 3rd Floor P O Box 146610 Salt Lake City UT 84114-6610 Phone: (801) 530-6800 Fax: (801) 530-6804 In-state To</p>