Iowa: Claimant Fails to Establish Causal Connection Between Legionnaires’ Disease and His Employment

Noting that a workers’ compensation claimant’s expert medical witnesses appeared to be completely unaware of the prophylactic measures taken by the employer to prevent contamination of its internal water system and that the employer’s experts detailed those measures and opined that the claimant’s Legionnaires’ disease could not be attributed to exposure to water at his employment, an Iowa appellate court affirmed a commissioner’s finding that the claimant had failed to establish his claim. The appellate court noted that it was a “close case,” but substantial evidence supported the commissioner’s findings.

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 McDonald v. EZ Payroll & Staffing Solutions, 2019 Iowa App. LEXIS 687 (July 24, 2019)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 15.05.

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

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see