What Happens With Workers Comp In Florida If You Get An Illness?

Most people who work in Sarasota, Punta Gorda, North Port, or other Southwest Florida areas think of workplace injuries that require workers comp as purely “physical” incidents. An example is someone getting electrocuted due to exposed wiring at a construction site or getting involved in a vehicle accident while delivering something.

However, medical conditions aren’t necessarily purely physical in the sense that an impact on a part of the body must be involved. In some cases, an illness can occur at a place of work. But what happens in these instances? Does workers comp still cover someone who gets sick at the workplace?

Circumstances Matter

As with other workplace injuries, workers comp is designed to help out workers who have become ill through no fault of their own. This is especially relevant in a post-COVID world where more people have an awareness of just how easily an illness can be transmitted. The key, however, is that whatever injury or illness sustained must result from negligence or carelessness on someone else’s part, not the victim.

If this condition is met, workers comp usually can help with some of these financial elements of the illness.

Medical Coverage

While some full-time jobs may offer health benefits, such as comprehensive health insurance, part-time and other jobs don’t necessarily have this kind of protection. Workers comp, however, does extend to part-time workers, so medical coverage of treatment expenses can be addressed.

Lost Wages

If you are too injured or ill to work, you don’t get paid for that work and lose the wages you would normally earn. Workers comp, however, can step in and provide the wages that would have otherwise been lost, making for more financial hardship, especially for workers with families reliant on a regular, incoming salary.

Career Rehabilitation

If an illness leaves you unable to continue to your current line of work, such as a permanent respiratory condition that makes it medically inadvisable for you to physically exert yourself in work such as construction, new vocations may be required. Workers comp can play a role in this kind of vocational rehabilitation to help people acclimate to new careers within their new medical limitations.

Death Benefits

Unfortunately, sometimes an illness can also result in death. Should this occur, workers comp can provide death benefits to surviving family members. Again, however, this is all contingent on the illness being contracted under the circumstances consistent with negligence on the part of the workplace.

There are, however, certain circumstances that would bar workers comp from covering an illness. These are:

Intentional Infection

If an illness was not an accident, you deliberately set yourself out to get infected, such as getting COVID-19 on purpose in the hopes of getting a mild disease for some time off, but it accelerated to a severe version that required the use of a respirator, Workers comp would not provide any assistance for a deliberate attempt.

Under The Influence

In the same way that you are at fault if you get into a traffic accident while drunk, the responsibility would also be assigned to you if you were drunk or under the influence of drugs when you contracted an illness. People tend to be careless in an altered state of consciousness and often put themselves into risky but ultimately avoidable situations.

Ignored Safeguards

If you get sick due to ignoring the safeguards put out by your place of work, then your workplace is not responsible for that infection. For example, if a demolition job reveals asbestos in a building, which is a carcinogen, and you ignore all the safety protocols to wear a mask, workers comp will not be there to help if you are later diagnosed with lung cancer as a result of inhaling those particles. You were advised to wear a mask to avoid this situation and chose not to do so.

If you have contracted an illness while working, and it is due to the negligence of the workplace, or even a third party, such as a place you were instructed to go to for work, talk to a workplace injury, or even a workers comp lawyer. You are probably entitled to some financial compensation for what has happened to you, and a legal expert can explain how you can secure that compensation.