Superior Court Overturns WCB's 2006-07 PI Threshold

On August 31st, the Kennebec County Superior Court invalidated the WCB’s regulation setting the PI threshold at 11.8% for injuries between 1/1/06 and 12/31/07. �

The Board had promulgated the PI threshold by counting injuries that had 0% PI, which obviously lowered the average, and the Court ruled that it was improper for the WCB to do so.�As a result, we have no PI threshold for injuries between 1/1/06 and 12/31/07. The WCB has not yet proposed a threshold for injuries beginning 1/1/08.

The WCB may appeal this decision to the Maine Supreme Court, or they may accept it and promulgate a new PI threshold accordingly. �If they don't include the 0% cases in the calculation, the PI threshold will probably be between 12% and 13%, requiring a PI finding of 13% or more to exceed the threshold.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Kevin Gillis

Tom Getchell

Mike Richards

Dan Gilligan