On March 5, 2024, Associate Policy Director Brianna January testified before the Senate Finance Committee in opposition to SB 0431 – Workers’ Compensation – Occupational Disease Presumption – Long COVID (Home of the Brave Act of 2024). This bill places long COVID as a new statutory presumption under workers’ compensation for certain public sector employees.
The bill applies to employees who, because of the nature of their roles, were unable to work from home during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, were diagnosed with COVID, and then later diagnosed with symptoms consistent with long COVID. Under Maryland’s statutes and case law, this presumption would be effectively irrebuttable for a lengthy list of public sector employees.
Maryland’s workers’ compensation law already creates a nearly “perfect storm,” where a series of statutory presumptions prompt consideration of workplace exposures leading to compensability. Maryland’s courts have effectively ruled that these presumptions are irrebuttable in compensability proceedings, so the outcome of presumption-related cases is virtually assured. Adding even more tenuous categories to this already biased structure would overburden public employers, causing them to shoulder the burden of an even longer list of employee claims − even those that are hard to diagnose and link to professional exposure, like long COVID.
Counties caution against the legislating of medical diagnoses that remain largely unagreed upon. Doing so would result in a patchwork of workers’ compensation claims and benefits based on widely varying medical opinions. Ultimately, some claimants’ situations would be deemed compensable, and others would be denied, despite experiencing the same symptoms. This would create volatility for workers and employers alike.
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