This decision is not as strange as it sounds, but the Iowa Workers’ Compensation Commissioner did find the facts “unusual.” In West Ridge Care Center v. Johnson, so far unpublished, the Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the decision of the Deputy Commissioner, sitting as Administrative Law Judge, who found that Annette Johnson was working 32 hours a week, but that she is entitled to permanent total disability benefits.  However, she is quite restricted, and for half of her work day, she requires an assistant to help her do her job as nursing home housekeeper.

The record seemed pretty clear that she could not perform the job as she had in the past, and that she required a great deal of accommodation.  In U.S.West v. Overholser, 566 N.W.2d 873 ( Iowa 1997), the Iowa Supreme Court had held that the employer’s attempts at accommodation, however commendable, did not justify a reduction in the award of industrial disability. In the Johnson case set out above, the employer made commendable efforts to accommodate the injured worker in her job as housekeeper, but the agency and the Courts are not likely to reduce a permanent total disability award, just because the employer hires someone to perform the job for the injured worker.