Pennsylvania: Retired Firefighter Did Not Show Work Connectedness of Prostate Cancer

The state’s Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board did not err when it denied benefits to a retired firefighter for his prostate cancer, where the Board determined that the claimant did not prove that his cancer was caused by exposure to 1ARC Group I carcinogens, for purposes of being an occupational disease under § 108(r) of the Workers’ Compensation Act [77 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 27.1(r)], or that it was caused by workplace exposure to Group 2A carcinogens for purposes of the “catchall” provision under § 27.1(n). The court additionally held that the retired firefighter could not utilize the statutory presumption in § 301(f) of the Act [77 Pa. Stat. Ann. § 414], to assist him in proving that his occupational disease was compensable because of the lack of showing under § 27.1(r).

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 Demchenko v. Workers’ Comp. Appeal Bd. (City of Philadelphia), 2016 Pa. Commw. LEXIS 453 (Oct. 26, 2016)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 52.07.

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