Michigan bill could change disability, mental injury eligibility

Lawmakers in Michigan for the second year will consider a comprehensive bill that would make several changes to the state’s workers compensation law, including adding to the definition of personal injury to address preexisting conditions of injured workers and clear red tape for disability payments for those who lose their job.

H.B. 6295, introduced Friday, would further describe a personal injury in workers comp as that which “accelerates, or worsens a symptom or pathology related to a physical or mental condition, regardless of any preexisting or coexisting condition the employee may have.”

The bill also proposes new language addressing disability eligibility: “If an employee, after being employed… for less than 100 weeks, loses the employee’s job, the employee’s personal injury is conclusively presumed to result in disability connected to wage loss” and “proof of work-related disability connected to wage loss is a question of fact.”

Also under disability language, the new bill states that in the instance an employee removes themself from the workforce by refusing employment “the employer has the burden of proof of establishing that the employee received a bona fide offer of reasonable employment.”

The bill also introduces penalties for a person aggrieved by a violation, who may “bring a tort action to recover damages or pursue sanctions before a workers compensation magistrate.”

If a worker’s compensation magistrate determines that “a person or entity” violated the worker’s rights under workers compensation “the magistrate shall order the person or entity to pay to the aggrieved person, without regard to disability or wage loss, an amount equal to 100 weeks of the aggrieved person’s average weekly wage earned at the time of the discharge, discrimination, or injury, whichever is greater.”