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LIMITS ON LEAVE BENEFITS

In general, no employee may combine any type of paid leave benefit, workers' compensation, disability benefit, or any other paid benefit in such a way that the resulting compensation would exceed the employee's average weekly earnings for the pay period in question.

If an employee is receiving workers' compensation benefits that total less than the employee's average weekly earnings, as determined for purposes of the workers' compensation claim, the employee may elect to use available sick or vacation leave or unused personal holidays to cover the difference between the workers' compensation benefits and the average weekly earnings. Use or application of any type of paid leave beyond that amount will not be permitted during the period covered by workers' compensation.

[Note: the purpose of this policy to prevent the "stacking" of paid leave benefits to achieve higher-than-normal pay. This is usually done in conjunction with workers' compensation benefits, but sometimes crops up as a problem when employees think they can apply multiple forms of paid leave all at once in order to quickly exhaust it and redeem it for pay. The only exception to employers being able to adopt such a policy pertains to state agencies, due to a Texas Attorney General's opinion (Opinion No. JC-0188 (2000), online at https://www.texasattorneygeneral.gov/sites/default/files/opinion-files/opinion/2000/jc0188.pdf), which states that a state agency may not prevent its employees who are on workers' compensation benefit status from using their available compensatory leave at the same time.]

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