What You Need to Know About New Ohio Workers’ Compensation Legislation
Smart Summary for Employers
- Sub. H.B. 27, containing numerous Workers’ Compensation provisions, became fully effective on 9/29/2017.
- New provisions alter old rules or create new rules on filing limitations, intoxication and incarceration, attorneys’ fees, firefighters and more.
The Ohio Legislature recently made a few tweaks to the law that you should be aware of. Here are some of the highlights:
Old rule: The statute of limitations to file a Workers’ Compensation claim was 2 years.
New rule: The statute of limitations to file a Workers’ Compensation claim was reduced to 1 year.
Old rule: Parties had 60 days to file an appeal into Court on “right to participate” issues.
New rule: If the parties agree, there is a mechanism to extend the deadline from 60 days to 150 days before an appeal is due so that the matter can be settled.
Old rule: Statute listed various drugs and levels of intoxication for purposes of the “rebuttable presumption” (that drug use caused the injury) to apply.
New rule: List is eliminated and in its place, general Federal Guidelines now apply with regard to intoxication levels.
Old rule: Compensation was denied only to an incarcerated claimant.
New rule: Neither an incarcerated claimant nor an incarcerated dependent is entitled to compensation.
Old rule: If a claimant was successful in Court on a “right to participate” issue, his/her attorney was entitled to attorneys’ fees, capped at $4,200.
New rule: The cap has been increased to $5,000.
New rule: Firefighters, who previously were not entitled to “wage loss” compensation in an allowed cancer claim, are now eligible for such compensation.
The Firefighter Cancer Presumption is now rebuttable.
For a complete listing of the statutory changes, please click here.
https://www.legislature.ohio.gov/download?key=7451&format=pdf
Please note that these statutory changes became effective September 29, 2017, and generally apply to claims with dates of injury after the effective date.
Kegler Brown E-mployment Alert, November 10, 2017
