DENVER, Colo. (Legal Newsline) - Another court has ruled COVID-19 can be considered an occupational disease, clearing the way for Workers' Compensation benefits to be paid to employees who suffered from it.
The Colorado Court of Appeals made its ruling May 2 in the case of the late Vincent Gaines, who worked as a floor technician and a member of the housekeeping department at long-term nursing facility University Park Care Center.
He contracted COVID in May 2020, two days after the first positive test of a resident. Two months later, the outbreak had caused 35 residents to become sick and eight die.
The staff had 13 known cases and nine probable ones. Gaines was hospitalized June 2, 2020, with acute respiratory failure with hypoxia due to pneumonia, then died a month later. His estate filed a Workers' Compensation claim for death benefits.
The Administrative Law Judge granted the request, and University Park and Old Republic Insurance Company unsuccessfully appealed to a panel. The Court of Appeals affirmed in an opinion written by Judge Ted Tow III.
It was likely he contracted COVID at work and not elsewhere, the ruling says.
"(B)ecause Gaines' exposure to COVID-19 was shown to have arisen out of his employment based on substantial evidence presented to the ALJ and upheld by the panel, his award of benefits should not be reversed on appeal 'based upon some ill-defined policy considerations' presented by the petitioners," Tow wrote.
Weeks before the Colorado ruling, the Nebraska Supreme Court, in a split ruling, found COVID can be considered an occupational disease. The claimant in that case had lost her arguments early before reversal.