Transportation worker fails to prove COVID work-related: Iowa appeals court

A transportation worker who worked in an office and had traveled prior to his positive COVID-19 test in 2020 failed to prove he contracted the illness at work and is not eligible for workers compensation benefits for his long COVID symptoms, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday.

In affirming the state’s workers compensation commissioner’s ruling in Charles Collins v. Des Moines Area Regional Transit Authority and West Bend Mutual Insurance, the court examined medical records, dates that other workers fell ill, and whether Mr. Collins and his family took precautions during the pandemic.

Mr. Collins had symptoms in the months prior to his documented infection but refused to take a COVID-19 test at that time, according to documents. He later tested positive when other workers became ill and the type of test he took accounted for the presence of COVID for several weeks, documents state.

“In all, Collins’s recent out-of-state travel, refusal of (an earlier) COVID test despite having respiratory symptoms… and lack of proven exposure to any COVID-positive person while at work provide substantial evidence to support the commissioner’s finding that Collins failed to prove he contracted COVID-19 in the course of his employment,” the court wrote.