Workers' Compensation insures for the consequences of infectious diseases arising out of and in the course of employment. Is the system ready for a potential onslaught of Zika claims?
The line in the sand has been drawn in the State of Florida, where an infected Miami Beach police officer has been denied benefits. The union has actively supporting the municipal employee in an effort to rule the claim compensable.
The NJ Supreme Court in establishing compensability in an occupational disease cited Justice Learned Hand, “Few adults are not diseased … an infection mastered, though latent, is no longer a disease, industrially speaking, until the individual's resistance is again so far lowered that he succumbs.” Bober v. Independent Plating Corp., 28 N.J. 160, 145 A.2d 463 (1958).
