For a little over three years, North Fulton Regional Hospital and its workers’ compensation insurer/servicing agent paid an injured employee temporary partial disability TPD benefits when it should have paid temporary total disability TTD benefits, a higher amount. After being ordered to pay the TTD benefits retroactively, the employer/insurer made a lump sum payment of the difference between the two amounts, plus penalties and interest. The issue on appeal is whether the employer/insurer was procedurally barred from taking credit for the amount already paid. This Court granted discretionary review of a superior court’s order holding that it was barred. The relevant facts show that Cathy Pearce-Williams sustained a compensable work injury on August 5, 1999. Prior to February 3, 2003, she received TTD benefits for the injury, apparently in the maximum allowed per week, i.e., $350. Then for the period running from February 3, 2003 to April 29, 2006 roughly 169 weeks, apparently based on a reclassification by the employer/insurer, the employer/insurer suspended TTD benefits and paid Pearce-Williams TPD benefits in the lesser amount of $233.33 per week in accordance with OCGA § 34-9-104 a 2.
In approximately June 2008, Pearce-Williams requested a hearing, alleging her injury was catastrophic, and had been, and that she was thus entitled to the original, full amount of TTD benefits retroactive to February 3, 2003. On August 20, 2008, an administrative law judge agreed and found, among other things, that the injury was catastrophic as defined by OCGA § 34-9-200.1 g 6 1999. The judge ordered the following result: The employer/insurer are hereby directed to recommence temporary total disability benefits effective the date of suspension, 02/03/2003. Benefits are payable on a continuing basis until otherwise terminated by law.1 The order is otherwise silent on the remedy, and it does not state the amount that should have been paid in response to the reclassification of the injury. The award was adopted by the appellate division and affirmed by the superior court. In Case Number A09D0347, we denied the employer’s application for discretionary appeal on the catastrophic designation. After the award became final, the employer/insurer paid Pearce-Williams a lump-sum amount intended to comply with the above order requiring it to pay TTD benefits from February 3, 2003 forward. To do so, it took credit for the TPD benefits that it had paid the claimant from February 2003 through April 2006.
