Special Disability Fund Comes to an End

Every year at this time, the Arkansas Workers' Compensation Commission has updated the threshold at which large death and permanent disability claims would be paid from a special state fund. That practice has come to an end. The commission announced this week that it would no longer update the threshold amount because the Death and Permanent Disability Trust Fund will no longer cover the catastrophically expensive injuries. The history of the fund goes back to 1973. From then until 1981, the amount that employers had to pay for permanent total injury benefits was capped at $50,000. That...