1. The Florida Court ruled in the case of Noa v. City of Aventura and Florida League of Cities that a merit bonus paid after the date of the accident could be added to the calculation of the employee’s average weekly wage for workers’ compensation.
2. The court interpreted the definition of wages and the method of calculating average weekly wage to mean that wages could be defined in terms of when they are “earned” rather than when they are “paid” in certain circumstances.
3. The court considered the merit bonus to be analogous to profits or commissions, which could have been earned during the thirteen weeks prior to the accident even though it was paid later.
4. The court ruled that the employee had earned a quarter of the bonus during the thirteen weeks prior to the date of the accident, based on her satisfactory performance during the entire 52-week period leading up to the merit bonus. – The First District reversed the trial judge’s Order and remanded the case back to recalculate the Employee’s AWW by including a pro rata share of her performance bonus in that calculation.
– As a general rule, merit bonuses paid after the thirteen weeks of an industrial injury are not included in the calculation of AWW.
– This case involved a potential exception to the general rule.
– Employers need to carefully consider the basis for payment of a bonus or commission to an employee after the date of their industrial injury.
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