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On Sept. 27, 2021, we posted about Ohio House Bill 401 and the potential for employers to lose workers’ compensation immunity for injuries incurred as a result of a mandatory vaccination. The bill would create a separate cause of action under Ohio law for persons allegedly injured as a result of an employer-mandated COVID-19 vaccine.

On Oct. 7, 2021, the Ohio House Labor and Commerce Committee held its second informal hearing on a separate but related piece of legislation, House Bill 435. The bill expressly provides that an injury covered under the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Act includes an injury or disability caused by an employer-mandated COVID-19 vaccine.…
Continue Reading The Ohio Legislature and dueling bills: Vaccinations and Ohio workers’ compensation

Keeping an eye on Ohio House Bill 401

Even as the federal government has moved toward mandating COVID vaccination by many employers, a bill introduced in the Ohio legislature, if passed, would eliminate workers’ compensation immunity and expose employers to potential liability for injuries incurred as a result of a mandatory vaccination.…
Continue Reading Will we say goodbye to workers’ compensation immunity for mandatory COVID vaccination-related damages?

After a year of conducting workers’ compensation hearings in Ohio via a teleconference bridge, on April 19, 2021, the Ohio Industrial Commission switched its hearing format to the WebEx platform. The format switch was necessitated by connection problems with the previous teleconference bridge.
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Continue Reading Updates on Ohio workers’ compensation hearings: WebEx has arrived

In response to a request from Gov. Mike DeWine, the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) has issued $5 billion in dividends to eligible private and public employers. This was the third round of BWC dividends issued to lessen the burdens of COVID-19 on Ohio employers. We’ve answered the five most common questions on the issuance.
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Continue Reading Five things employers should know about Ohio BWC dividends

The attorneys behind the Employer Law Report Blog present the second blog in our three-part series on the COVID-19 vaccine and employer considerations.

The COVID-19 vaccination process has begun in the U.S., but at this point, the COVID-19 vaccine is not widely available to most employees. As explored in Part 1 of our series on the COVID-19 vaccine, many employers are deciding whether to require or incentivize their employees to obtain the vaccination. In addition to the issues raised in those posts, employers need to consider the implications of the workers’ compensation system in developing vaccination policies and procedures.

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Continue Reading Vaccine policies and workers’ compensation

A new year presents an opportunity to reevaluate the prior year and make any necessary changes for the upcoming year. Although typically this period of reflection relates to healthy eating and exercise regimens, it is also a relevant exercise for evaluating the status of the workers’ compensation system.
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Continue Reading Looking back at 2020: Did the COVID-19 pandemic cause the predicted onslaught of workers’ compensation claims?

Recently, Governor Mike DeWine signed House Bill 81 which contains several changes to workers’ compensation laws. Most significantly, the bill contains a provision that will codify the common law voluntary abandonment doctrine. This provision should ensure that injured workers do not receive certain disability benefits if their loss of income is not related to the allowed conditions in a claim. Significantly, this codification specifically supersedes any court opinions applying the well-known doctrine.…
Continue Reading What changes are coming to the well-known Ohio workers’ compensation voluntary abandonment doctrine?

On June 5, 2020 Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker signed House Bill 2455 into law, thereby amending the Illinois Workers’ Occupation Diseases Act with respect to claims related to COVID-19. Codified as Public Act 101-0633, the amendment creates a rebuttable presumption that an employee’s contraction of COVID-19 arises out of and in the course of that employee’s first responder or front-line worker employment, and that the injury or occupational disease is rebuttably presumed to be causally connected to the hazards or exposures of the employee’s first responder or front-line worker employment.
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Continue Reading The avalanche continues – Illinois workers’ compensation law set for COVID-19 expansion