ALJ USES WEIGHTED AVERAGE OF CLAIMANTS SALARY TO CALCULATE HIS COMPENSATION

Ted Ivey v. Huntington Ingalls, Inc
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Excerpts

The parties’ only dispute is Claimant’s AWW at the time of his injury. Claimant

multiplies his hourly wage rate of $21.85 by 40 hours to reach an AWW of $874. In the

alternative, Claimant argues his AWW should be no less than $731.70 per week, based
on his gross earnings of the 13 weeks worked prior to the accident. Employer argues that
since Claimant rarely worked a 40-hour week, the more accurate means of calculating his
AWW is to divide his gross earnings during the 52 weeks prior to his injury by the
number of weeks he actually worked, yielding $688.0The parties agree Claimant’s AWW should be determined using Section 10(c) of the Act. 

Section 10 of the Act sets forth three alternative methods for calculatin claimant’s average annual earnings, which are then divided by 52, pursuant to Section 10(d), to arrive at an average weekly wage. The computation methods are direct toward establishing a claimant’s earning power at the time of injury.

Conclusion

The record establishes that Claimant was not a five or six day worker and the

parties agreed that Section 10(c) applies. Employer does not contest that using an hourly

wage rate of $21.85 is proper. The issue is how many hours he worked. Claimant’s

suggestion that his average weekly wage should be based upon an assumption that he

averaged forty hours per week is unsupported by the record. He never worked 52 or even

50 weeks in a year and he never came close to averaging 40 hours for the weeks during

which he did work