COVID19 AND WORKERS COMPENSATION Georgias Workers Compensation Act

COVID-19 AND WORKERS’ COMPENSATION • Georgia’s Workers’ Compensation Act treats Injuries and Diseases differently • Injuries: Must “arise out of and in the course of” employment; • Diseases: Must satisfy all 5 elements of OCGA 34 -9 -280(2) • To be compensable under Georgia’s WC Act, it must be proven that: • A direct causal connection between the conditions under which the work is performed and the disease; • That the disease followed as a natural incident of exposure by reason of the employment; • That the disease is not of a character to which the employee may have had substantial exposure outside of the employment; • That the disease is not an ordinary disease of life to which the general public is exposed; • That the disease must appear to have had its origin in a risk connected with the employment and to have flowed from that source as a natural consequence. • Cases: • Depression and Anxiety are not occupational diseases as they are ordinary diseases to which the general public is exposed. (Unless directly related to a physical, compensable injury. ) • Hospital worker could not recover for Hepatitis B infection as it is an ordinary disease of life to which the general public is exposed. • Employee who contracted malaria while on the job in South America had compensable Occupational Disease since Malaria is not a disease to which the general public in Georgia or United States is exposed.