Florida lawmakers aim to define heart disease for presumption

Florida lawmakers introduced bills that appear to answer the state fire marshal’s call to revise the definition of heart disease for the purpose of a law that presumes certain conditions are compensable for first responders.

S.B. 366 and its companion H.B. 269, introduced Monday and Tuesday, respectively, would define heart disease to mean “any organic, mechanical or functional abnormality of the heart, its structures or the coronary arteries.”

The existing law declares that conditions including heart disease, hypertension and tuberculosis are presumed to arise out of employment for firefighters, law enforcement officers and correctional workers.

Lawmakers did not define heart disease when they created the statute in 1965. And Florida’s chief financial officer, who also serves as the state’s fire marshal, said in October that an appellate court definition of what constitutes heart disease improperly removes medical science and expert testimony from compensability determinations, usurps the factfinding function of workers compensation judges and produces unjust and inconsistent results.

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.