Ohio: Denied Claim Abates at Death of Workers’ Compensation Claimant

The language of Ohio Rev. Code Ann. § 4123.60 expressly authorizes a deceased worker’s dependents to recover the compensation benefits for which the worker qualified and should have received before death. Otherwise, however, the claim abates upon the worker’s death, held a state appellate court. Accordingly, the surviving spouse, based on his status as a dependent, could not simply “step into the shoes” of the deceased claimant and continue to pursue the deceased claimant’s appeal of the workers’ compensation claim after the claimant’s death.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is the co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law (LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Zebrasky v. Discount Drug Mart, Inc., 2017-Ohio–4446, 2017 Ohio App. LEXIS 2507 (June 22, 2017)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 89.05.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law