NWCDN Members regularly post articles and summary judgements in workers’ compensations law in your state.
Select a state from the dropdown menu below to scroll through the state specific archives for updates and opinions on various workers’ compensation laws in your state.
Contact information for NWCDN members is also located on the state specific links in the event you have additional questions or your company is seeking a workers’ compensation lawyer in your state.
Oklahoma Trends April 2024
Covid Appeal
The Workers' Compensation Commission will hear an employer's appeal of an order by an administrative law judge finding that a claimant's contraction of COVID-19 is compensable as an on-the-job injury. The claimant also is appealing the order because the judge limited TTD in the case to eight weeks.
The claimant worked for a hospital in Tulsa. As an RN, she was treating a COVID patient who tore the nurse's A-95 mask off, screamed at her, and spit in her face and mouth. The claimant reported the incident. Ten days later, she had a high fever and tested positive for COVID, was sent home from work, and grew progressively worse.
The claimant now has LONG COVID and has
developed diabetes, high blood pressure, lung issues, and heart problems.
An Independent Medical Examiner appointed in the case found that all these
conditions were a result of the COVID infection. The judge followed the
report and found a single event injury of contracting the COVID with a
consequential injury to the heart, lungs, and diabetes.
The judge found that the claimant was required
to have blood tests and other diagnostics every 90 days as an ICU nurse and
that she did not have diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart problems before
COVID. The judge ordered the employer to pay for medical treatment for the
consequential injuries.
The judge also found that COVID is NOT an
"ordinary disease of life" to which the general public is exposed.
85A O.S. Sec. 65(D)(3) provides that ordinary diseases of life are not
compensable under workers' compensation law. The judge wrote, "The facts
of this case certainly are not ordinary and the exposure was not the same as
that of the general public. Claimant's job placed her at increased risk of
contracting COVID-19."
After finding the injury compensable, the judge
awarded only eight weeks of TTD, citing Section 62 of the AWCA that limits TTD
to eight weeks in "soft tissue" injuries.