New York appeals court says COVID infection not compensable
- July 8, 2025
- Posted by: Web workers
- Category: Workers Comp
A New York appeals court on Thursday reversed an earlier ruling that found a school custodian’s COVID-19 infection compensable.
Michael Angelo was working for the Southwestern Central School in Jamestown, New York, when he contracted COVID-19. His employer and its workers compensation insurer denied the claim “contending, among other things, that the alleged injury did not occur in the course of claimant’s employment and that there was no causal relationship between such injury and employment,” according to Matter of Angelo (Southwestern Cent. Sch.), filed in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of the State of New York.
A Workers’ Compensation Law Judge disallowed the claim, finding that Mr. Angelo “failed to establish that he had direct contact with an infected coworker or that COVID-19 was prevalent in his work environment.” Upon administrative review, the Workers’ Compensation Board reversed, reasoning that “claimant’s job as a high school custodian was a public-facing job that significantly elevated his risk of exposure to COVID-19 via contact with students.”
The appeals court reversed this assessment, writing that “claimant’s brief encounters with a passing group of students in a corridor falls short of the degree of regular, consistent and close interaction with the public at large necessary to sustain a finding of prevalence,” citing case law that included Matter of Miller v Transdev Bus on Demand LLC, which found a bus driver’s COVID-19 death compensable due to regular, prolonged contact with symptomatic individuals.
The court also wrote that in the case of the custodian, “the record reflects that either claimant or members of his household engaged in other in-person pursuits during the relevant time period.”
“Under these circumstances, the Board’s finding that claimant’s employment exposed him to an elevated risk of exposure to COVID-19 cannot stand,” the court wrote, citing cases in 2023 and 2024 that arrived at the same determinations.
