Furnace Worker Can't Collect Benefits over COVID-19 Infection

Cleveland, OH (WorkersCompensation.com) –Whether a worker can collect benefits for having contracted COVID-19 typically depends on how a state defines occupational disease. 

The issue of whether a furnace operator was entitled to benefits over his COVID-19 infection in Yeager v. Arconic, Inc, No. 2021-T-0052 (Ohio App. Ct. 06/13/22), hinged on Ohio’s rule that a worker’s job must create a peculiar risk of contracting the disease if it is to be compensable.  

The operator claimed he contracted the virus about a week after working side-by-side on a furnace with a coworker who was infected. He challenged a trial court’s determination that his COVID-19 infection was not a compensable injury. 

In Ohio, the appeals court explained, an employee is entitled to worker’s compensation based on contracting an “occupational disease.” An occupational disease, the court explained, means: 

1) The disease was contracted in the course of employment; 

2) The disease: 1) is peculiar to the claimant's employment by its causes and the way it manifests; or 2) the employment conditions result in a hazard which distinguishes the employment in character from employment generally; and 

3) The employment creates a risk of contracting the disease in a greater degree and in a different manner than in the public generally. 

The court acknowledged evidence that on March 20, 2020, the employee worked alongside a coworker in a furnace pulpit for approximately 30 minutes. Further, the employees were not wearing masks and did not have the ability to socially distance. The court further noted that the furnace worker began experiencing COVID-19 symptoms approximately one week later and tested positive for the virus on March 28. 

The court suggested that the worker satisfied the second element of the occupational disease definition by showing that COVID-19 was peculiar to his employment because he was required to work in close proximity to the infected coworker. But that wasn’t sufficient to show he was at greater risk than the general public for contracting the virus, the court stated. 

The court pointed out that the worker’s own medical expert’s testimony indicated that COVID-19 falls within the category of common illness to which the general public is exposed. Such common illnesses are not compensable. That expert, the court added, suggested that the worker’s exposure to the virus as a furnace operator for the company was no different than the risk he would have faced while in a general manufacturing job or while working in a grocery store. 

Accordingly, the court affirmed the trial court’s ruling.  

Because the worker did not show that his employment as a furnace operator created a risk of contracting COVID-19 in greater degree and in a different manner from the public in general, the trial court did not err in granting summary judgment in favor of the company, the appeals court held.