Could Grocery Worker Cash in on Prior Manager Role to Set Average Monthly Wage?

What Do You Think?

The Arizona Industrial Commission determines an injured employee's average monthly wage for purposes of workers’ compensation by looking at what the employee was earning at the time he was injured.

But what if the employee was working a lower paying position when he was injured due to a prior injury at the same company? Is he entitled to an AMW that reflects his previous, higher pay? That was the conundrum in the case of a Kroger’s employee who, in 2022, was working as a cashier when he was injured at work. The Commission set his AMW at $2,679 based on an expanded six-month period.

Thinking he was being short-changed, the claimant said his AMW should really be $3,745. He explained that this was because in 2017, he was in a higher paying managerial role when he suffered another workplace injury. It was after that first injury that he transitioned to a cashier job. Thus, though he was a cashier when he was last injured, that lower pay was out of his control because it was a result of being injured in 2017.

He also told the commission that with his 37 years in the grocery industry there were "many other things that [he] could have done" besides cashiering.

The Commission rejected his quest for a higher AMW and the claimant appealed.

The appeals court explained that the Commission determines a worker's disability benefits by using the worker's AMW at the time of injury. The AMW is the average wage paid during and over the month in which the employee was injured. 

However, the Commission may decide to use an expanded wage base, as occurred here. An expanded base is not supposed to include periods when an employee is unable to work due to factors outside his control.

Should the claimant’s AMW have been based on his 2017 earnings as a manager?

A. No. Whether to continue working as a cashier or obtain a higher paying job was up to him.

B. Yes. His cashier job didn’t truly reflect his earning capacity.

If you selected A, you agreed with the court in Cantrell v. Industrial Comm’n of Arizona, No. 1 CA-IC 24-0060 (Ariz. Ct. App. 09/25/25, unpublished), which held that the Commission correctly calculated the AMW. Simply Research subscribers have access to the full text of the decision.

The court rejected the cashier’s argument that his 2017 wages should be his AMW. While he contended his 2022 wages were lower through no fault of his own, this was not a case where factors outside of the employee’s control, like a company shut-down, was to blame. Rather, the lower wage was due to factors within his control. 

The claimant's own statements concerning his long experience in the grocery industry supported the idea that he could have found alternative employment with higher pay that would have fit his restrictions. Instead, after leaving his managerial role, the claimant maintained his cashier position for five years. 

“Since [the claimant] voluntarily stayed in the cashier role, ... the AMW calculation was appropriate,” the court wrote. 

The court affirmed the commission’s calculation of his AMW at $2,679.

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