An insurer erred in denying workers’ compensation benefits to a utility worker who contracted COVID-19 while on the job, a job the state had deemed as “essential” during the pandemic.
The insurer had denied the claim on the basis that the risk of contracting COVID-19 was not inherent in the nature of Jeff Stacy’s employment as a lineman for the electric utility Unitil Corp.
But the insurer failed to reasonably consider how the pandemic changed the working conditions for the lineman. These conditions included the fact that the state had declared a state of emergency due to the pandemic and ordered all nonessential businesses and services to close. Stacy was one of the few “essential workers” who continued to work.
In February 2021, while that order was in place, a series of snowstorms forced Stacy to work overtime. On February 17, 2021, the lineman who shared Stacy’s truck reported feeling unwell and eight of the 11 linemen on Stacy’s team tested positive for COVID-19. Stacy initially tested negative and continued to work. Four days later, however, Stacy developed COVID-19 symptoms and tested positive. Stacy was hospitalized and placed on a ventilator and has also been treated for severe shortness of breath and depression. He has not been able to return to work.
After the utility’s workers’ compensation insurer, Travelers Indemnity Co., denied his claim, Stacy appealed. An administrative judge for the state’s Industrial Accident Board then sided with the lineman. As an “essential services” provider, an IAB judge found, Stacy was “sent out to work in an obviously dangerous environment and put at risk of being infected.”
Stacy’s job required him to work side by side with fellow employees and to spend time in a truck cab with a coworker. In the view of the administrative judge, these “essentially characteristic aspects” of his employment increased Stacy’s likelihood of contracting COVID-19. The evidence included a physician report concluding that Stacy contracted COVID-19 from exposure in the course of his employment.
Accordingly, the IAB judge found that, under the conditions Stacy faced in early 2021, an inherent danger of infection was essentially characteristic of Stacy’s employment. Because Stacy sustained a compensable personal injury, the administrative judge ordered the insurer to pay temporary total incapacity benefits and to cover related medical expenses.
The full IAB affirmed the administrative judge’s decision, adopting the judge’s factual determinations. Travelers Indemnity appealed.
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) took up the insurer’s appeal, agreeing to determine whether the decision granting workers’ compensation benefits to Stacy was arbitrary or capricious. The state’s high court has now upheld the award of benefits, finding the decision was not arbitrary or capricious or otherwise contrary to law.
The court noted that the Legislature extended workers’ compensation to cover infectious or contagious diseases in 1941 in certain circumstances. The act states in pertinent part that “personal injury includes infectious or contagious diseases if the nature of the employment is such that the hazard of contracting such diseases by an employee is inherent in the employment.”
The SJC further noted that when, because of the nature of the employment, a possibility exists that an employee may contract an infectious or contagious disease, “it becomes a question of fact whether the likelihood of infection or contagion is so essentially characteristic of the employment as to warrant a finding that the danger is inherent therein.”
The parties did not dispute either that Stacy contracted COVID-19 in the course of his employment as a lineman or that Stacy’s total disability is related to COVID-19.
Rather the insurer contended that risk of contracting COVID-19 was not inherent in Stacy’s employment because “working as a lineman does not present an environment where the danger of acquiring COVID-19 essentially lurks.” Consideration of the extraordinary circumstances of the worker’s exposure as an essential services provider during the state of emergency was impermissible, in the insurer’s view.
But the high court found that it was right to consider the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic. The court said the board “reasonably considered” that Stacy’s job was one of the few “essential services” urged by the Governor to continue at a time when the risk of infection through close contact with others was high. Nearly all businesses in the Commonwealth initially were shuttered and even gatherings of more than 10 persons were prohibited. Stacy’s job required him to work side by side with fellow employees and to spend time in a truck cab with a coworker. The high court agreed that these essential aspects of his employment increased the likelihood of contracting COVID-19.
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