Request By:
Cattie Lou Miller
Executive Director
Crime Victims Compensation Board
113 East Third Street
Frankfort, Kentucky 40601
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; Martin Glazer, Assistant Attorney General
You indicate that the Crime Victims Compensation Board seeks the opinion of this office as to whether replacement wages received by victims from other sources should be deducted from the $150 weekly maximum award referred to in KRS 346.130, subsection 4, or whether replacement wages should simply be deducted from what the claimant would have earned had he not been a crime victim. You cite the case of an individual who had actual lost wages of $7,000, but because of the $150 weekly maximum, his wage claim was only for $2550. Thus, the issue is whether the insurance received for the lost wages is to be deducted from the total loss or only from the total wages allowed under the statute at $150 per week.
KRS 346.130, subsection 4, provides in part:
"Any award made for loss of earnings or support shall, unless reduced pursuant to other provisions of this chapter, be in an amount equal to the actual loss sustained; provided, however, that no such award shall exceed one hundred fifty dollars ($150) for each week of lost earnings or support."
KRS 346.140, subsection 1, provides in part:
"Any award made pursuant to this chapter shall be reduced by the amount of any payments received or to be received by the claimant as a result of the injury from the following sources: . . . (b) under insurance programs mandated by law; (c) from public funds; (d) under any contract of insurance wherein the claimant is the insured or beneficiary . . . ." (Emphasis added.)
So, from this language, it appears that any award must be reduced by the amounts of payments received from these other sources rather than crediting payment from all possible loss.
Since the maximum award for lost earnings cannot exceed $150 per week, any insurance received or compensation for lost earnings must be deducted from the $150 per week, not from the total possible claim for lost earnings had the maximum not been in the statute.