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Coronavirus is currently spreading across the globe.  As of the date of this article, it has yet to reach the United States in significant numbers, but it appears like a more widespread outbreak may be on the horizon. Individuals have a wide variety of exposure risks when it comes to coronavirus.  Many of those risks are work-related.  In those cases, the persons who contract coronavirus should be pursuing workers’ compensation claims.

If you, or someone you know contracts coronavirus, and think it may be related to work, feel free to contact The Harris Firm to determine whether you can pursue a workers’ compensation claim.  Below are some things to keep in mind when thinking about whether a work-related claim for coronavirus might exist.

The most obvious claims for work-related coronavirus will arise from individuals working in the medical field.

As we have already seen in China, individuals who are assigned to treat persons suffering from coronavirus have an increased likelihood of contracting the disease themselves.  Doctors, nurses, hospital staffers, individuals involved in containment practices, and many others are coming into contact with coronavirus sufferers across the world.  If those same individuals contract the coronavirus due to this exposure they unquestionably have workers’ compensation claims that should be pursued.  If you are exposed to coronavirus at work with patients suffering from the disease, a workers’ compensation claim should be filed related to those exposures. [Read more…]

The question of what actually constitutes substantial aggravation remains murky.  While the legislature that enacted substantial aggravation may view this problem as a triumph – their objective was seemingly to enact a law that would make aggravations difficult to demonstrate – the question of how exactly one proves substantial aggravation has proven difficult for the Commission and the courts.  The thing that appears most clear at this time is that even though the law is written as if it wants diagnostic testing preceding an injury, the unfairness of such a request means that other evidence must exist that can prove a substantial aggravation occurred (of course some would even disagree with this statement).   Various opinions have addressed what might constitute this evidence, but most of those cases have provided small windows and minimal clarity. [Read more…]

Everyone who practices workers’ compensation knows that SB7 changed the aggravation standard to a substantial aggravation supported by objective findings.  Everyone in the field also knows that almost eight years later, the exact definition of objective findings remains a mystery.  The lack of a pure definition of objective findings has caused significant issues for those of us who represent injured workers.  Obviously, most cases do not present the kind of objective findings that would make proving substantial aggravation claims easiest to prove, namely baseline testing prior to the occurrence of an injury.  Without such testing, injured workers forced to make a host of arguments which may or may not be considered based on objective findings depending on the adjudicator.  Unfortunately for injured workers, the justification most commonly offered as supporting conditions by both injured workers and their physicians – the absence of problems preceding an injury – is often deemed not objective by the Industrial Commission and the courts, based on the determination that the complaints themselves are subjective.  Since the statute makes clear that complaints deemed subjective can only help to support a substantial aggravation claim when objective findings are present, but cannot support substantial aggravation claims without objective medical findings laying the foundation for the condition, requests based solely on subjective history are routinely denied.  These leave injured workers needing to figure out which portion of their case can actually be deemed objective enough to give them a chance at winning a substantial aggravation claim. [Read more…]

R.C. 4121.13 sets forth the Administrator’s duty in regard to safety violations.  To state it simply, the code requires the Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC), to ascertain and declare safety standards which are “Best adapted to render the employees of every employment and place of employment safe.”  R.C. 4121.13.  The standards must be “reasonable” and equipped to ensure the “protection of the life, health, safety, and welfare of employees in employments and places of employment or frequenters of places of employment.”  R.C. 4121.13(A)-(D).

Anyone who practices workers’ compensation in the state of Ohio knows that the BWC has failed to live up to its obligations under R.C. 4121.13.  To the best of my knowledge, the last meaningful review of the safety violation (VSSR) codes happened over 25 years ago.  More recent revisions to the codes have been little more than cursory adjustments.  Unfortunately, the workplace is very different than it was 25 years ago, the codes have become so outdated such that the existing provisions rarely apply to the equipment found in the modern workplace.  The result is that employers can freely apply lax safety policies with little fear of consequences rendered from the extant VSSR codes. [Read more…]