State high court finds nurse’s COVID hospitalization compensable

The West Virginia Supreme Court on Tuesday ruled that a nurse contracted COVID-19 in her work treating patients in prison, establishing compensability for an illness that resulted in a 15-day hospital stay.

The latest ruling in Brittany Foster v. Primecare Medical of West Virginia, Inc., the state’s highest court said it was not convinced of her employer’s assertion that she had not contracted the virus in 2021 via “some, or all of the twenty work-related exposures,” in treating prisoners who had tested positive for the virus, but “that she may have also been exposed during the course of two non-work-related outings during the relevant time frame: a closed-window car trip to a drive-through zoo with her mother, father, and two nieces in the vehicle, or a trip to the emergency room.”

The state Workers’ Compensation Board of Review found her claim compensable, yet the Intermediate Court of Appeals reversed, agreeing with Primecare that one risk study showed that there was risk in contracting the virus elsewhere — relying on data from three metropolitan areas, and not rural West Virginia, where Ms. Foster worked — and thus COVID-19 could not be a considered an occupational illness. The employer also argued that pre-existing conditions led to her hospitalization.

The state’s highest court, in finding her claim compensable, wrote that the Intermediate Court of Appeals failed to consider all the medical evidence in Ms. Foster’s case, and instead relied too heavily on a risk assessment of her job as a health care worker.