Hawaii: Pointing to Other, "Potential" Causes is Insufficient to Overcome Hawaii's Presumption of Compensability

Hawaii's presumption of compensability cannot be overcome merely by the employer's offer of evidence that some cause, other than the employment, was medically plausible in producing the injured worker's condition or illness, held the Supreme Court of Hawaii. In its decision, the state high court reversed a decision by the state’s Intermediate Court of Appeals that had rejected an “injury-by-disease” claim filed by a worker in a grocery store meat department, who claimed he had been made ill by the store's buildup of mold and other toxins. The Supreme Court was particularly unimpressed with a 407-page, single-spaced IME report, which pointed to a number of causes, other than the moldy work environment as being the basis of the worker's problems. The Court noted the articles cited by the doctor were relatively old and that the lengthy report had been produced in just a few days time after examining the worker.

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

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Cadiz v. QSI, Inc., 2020 Haw. LEXIS 200 (June 30, 2020)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 130.06.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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