Alabama: Receipt of Short-Term Disability Benefits Does Not Always Toll Statute of Limitations for Filing Occupational Disease Claim

Receipt of short-term disability benefits under an employer-sponsored plan does not toll the two-year statute of limitations for the filing of an occupational disease claim in Alabama where there was nothing in the paperwork associated with the benefits that indicated that the worker had contracted her condition from any workplace exposure, held an Alabama appellate court. The court acknowledged that the worker’s physician had indicated the employee could not work in an environment exposing her to noxious fumes and particulates, but nowhere did the physician indicate the worker’s employment environment had been the cause of her illness. The court cited an earlier decision in which an employee had received “sick pay” from the employer, but where there had been no designation that the sick pay was associated with any workplace exposure or injury.

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 

See Martin v. Austal USA, LLC, 2015 Ala. Civ. App. LEXIS 242 (Oct. 16, 2015) 

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 126.07

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