Workers' compensation: temporary disability: local inmates.

Existing workers' compensation law generally requires employers to secure the payment of workers' compensation, including medical treatment, for injuries incurred by their employees that arise out of, and in the course of, employment. Existing law provides certain methods for determining workers' compensation benefits payable to a worker or his or her dependents for purposes of temporary disability, permanent total disability, permanent partial disability, and in case of death. Existing law requires, in computing average annual earnings for the purposes of temporary disability indemnity and permanent total disability indemnity only, that the average weekly earnings be taken, for injuries occurring on or after January 1, 2006, at not less than $189, nor more than $1,260 or 1.5 times the state average weekly wage, whichever is greater, and, commencing January 1, 2007, and each January thereafter, requires that those limits be increased by an amount equal to the percentage increase in the state average weekly wage as compared to the prior year. Existing law provides that whenever a person confined in the county jail, industrial farm, road camp, or city jail suffers injuries or death while working in the prevention or suppression of forest, brush, or grass fires, he or she shall be considered to be an employee of the county or city, respectively, for purposes of workers' compensation. Existing law provides that persons performing certain duties under a county work release program shall be eligible for workers' compensation. This bill would require, for injuries to an inmate of any county jail or an inmate assigned to a county work release program occurring on or after January 1, 2010, for temporary disability, that the benefit amounts payable to an injured worker be not less than an amount equal to the employee's weekly earnings from all employers, nor more than $1,260, or 1.5 times the state average wage, whichever is greater.