Workers’ compensation provides benefits for workers who suffer not only work-related injuries but also illnesses. Some illnesses are designated as “occupational diseases” by the workers’ comp laws and automatically covered. But other types of illnesses are only considered an “occupational disease” when they arise out of and in the course of the worker’s employment. So does workers’ comp cover a worker who catches swine flu at work?

Guidance on Swine Flu Claims

Several workers’ comp boards have posted guidance on how swine flu claims would be evaluated for workers’ comp purposes. The consensus seems to be that most workers who come down with swine flu won’t be entitled to workers’ comp—even if they might have caught the illness at work. The thinking is that the flu is a “community” disease and workers will be exposed to it in various aspects of their lives, including at home, while shopping or on mass transit. So tying the worker’s contraction of H1N1 to his employment will be very difficult.

In general, workers who contract H1N1 would be entitled to workers’ comp benefits only if they can show that the nature of their employment sufficiently exposed them to sources of infection and that such exposure was what made them sick.

For example, a nurse in a hospital who catches H1N1 from patients sick with swine flu would likely be covered by workers’ comp but a clerk in a retail store who gets swine flu from a shopper or co-worker probably wouldn’t have a workers’ comp claim.

Of course, the workers’ comp boards all note that each swine flu-related claim will be evaluated on its own merits.

Resources

Here’s what various workers’ comp boards had to say about swine flu claims:

Alberta: Released an employer fact sheet and a worker fact sheet on H1N1 claims.

Manitoba: Says that claims for workers who have contracted a pandemic disease will be adjudicated in the same way as claims for other infectious diseases thought to be contracted in the workplace. This policy on occupational disease provides details on how the WCB adjudicates these types of claims.

Ontario: Released an H1N1 Q&A that addresses workers’ comp coverage of swine flu claims.

Yukon: Released an H1N1 Q&A that addresses workers’ comp coverage of swine flu claims.