NJ Work Injury Insights from JFR

Cruz v. Central Jersey Landscaping, Inc., 195 N.J. 33 (2008)

 The New Jersey Supreme Court considered four consolidated appeals that raised the question of whether the Legislature's 2004 amendment to the schedule of workers' compensation death benefits was intended to be applied retroactively. The claimant in each of the four cases was entitled to death benefits. At the time of the death of each claimant's decedent, the statute included a schedule for calculating the benefits payable, expressed as a percentage, that varied based upon the number of surviving dependents. The applicable range provided for benefits of: fifty percent of wages for one dependent; fifty-five percent of wages for two dependents; sixty percent of wages for three dependents; sixty-five percent of wages for four dependents; and seventy percent of wages for five or more dependents. In 2004, the Legislature amended the statute and replaced the tiered system of benefits with a flat rate of seventy percent of the decedent's wages, to be payable regardless of whether a deceased worker was survived by one or more dependents. The issue raised in each case was whether the claimants were entitled to benefits at the amended flat rate of seventy percent or only to the pre-amendment graduated-tier benefits based on the number of each decedent's dependents.

The four separate matters were consolidated for consideration in the Appellate Division, where a divided panel determined that the amendment to the Act was entitled to retroactive application. The New Jersey Supreme Court reversed. The court explained that retroactivity is only appropriate when it is expressed, when an amendment is curative, or when the expectations of the parties so warrant. According to the court, the record demonstrated that the Legislature neither expressly stated, nor implicitly made known, its intention to have the increased benefit levels apply retroactively. The court took the Legislature's direction that the amendment take effect immediately to mean that the increased benefit rates would apply to claims that would arise immediately after the effective date of the amendment. Further, the court stated that, in the absence of an unambiguous directive that the Legislature so intended, it could not interpret the amendment in an expansive fashion because to do so could result in all of the awards that have been entered in years past being reopened to permit an increase in benefits.

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