The City of San Jacinto is the first to take official action to support AB664 with a unanimous vote of the City Council on April 21, 2020.
**BREAKING NEWS**
The City of San Jacinto is the first to take official action to support AB664 with a unanimous vote of the City Council on April 21, 2020.
Existing law establishes a workers’ compensation system, administered by the Administrative Director of the Division of Workers’ Compensation, to compensate an employee for injuries sustained in the course of employment. Existing law creates a disputable presumption that specified injuries sustained in the course of employment of a specified member of law enforcement or a specified first responder arose out of and in the course of employment.
Existing law also makes an employer liable only for the percentage of permanent disability directly caused by the injury arising out of and occurring in the course of employment. Existing law requires apportionment of permanent disability to be based on causation, and requires a physician’s report addressing the issue of permanent disability to include an apportionment determination in order for the report to be considered complete on that issue. Existing law exempts certain injuries, including the above-described injuries, from the provisions requiring apportionment.
This bill would define “injury,” for certain state and local firefighting personnel, peace officers, certain hospital employees, and certain fire and rescue services coordinators who work for the Office of Emergency Services to include being exposed to or contracting, on or after January 1, 2020, a communicable disease, including coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), that is the subject of a state or local declaration of a state of emergency that is issued on or after January 1, 2020. The bill would create a conclusive presumption, as specified, that the injury arose out of and in the course of the employment. The bill would apply to injuries that occurred prior to the declaration of the state of emergency. The bill would also exempt these provisions from the apportionment requirements.
This bill would declare that it is to take effect immediately as an urgency statute.