ABSTRACT
States have responded to COVID-19’s ongoing workplace disruptions with myriad workers’ compensation policy changes. While some states have extended presumptions of coverage to a large swath of workers who are at risk of contracting COVID-19 on the job, others have been far more measured or have declined to meaningfully change their policies. In contemplating state responses to COVID-19, this Comment makes two novel contributions to legal scholarship: First, it categorizes states into one of four groupings along a spectrum of coverage, from most likely to extend workers’ compensation benefits to at-risk employees to least likely. Second, it contends that both historical and economic principles counsel states to adopt a selective coverage approach to pandemic workers’ compensation. Under a selective coverage approach, states adopt a presumption of coverage for certain workers, such as first responders and grocery store clerks, who are most at risk of contracting pandemic diseases through the course of their work.
Moore, Dylan, Striking a New Grand Bargain: Workers’ Compensation as a Social Safety Net (April 16, 2021). University of Chicago Legal Forum, forthcoming.
First posted 2021-04-29 09:30:34
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