Frantz Ward’s Labor & Employment Group has previously written about the Ohio Bureau of Workers’ Compensation’s treatment of marijuana in its Drug-Free Safety Program (DFSP) following the legalization of medical marijuana in 2016. The legalization of cannabis for certain medical conditions has had no effect on the BWC’s position that a drug-free workplace meant a
Fighting and Horseplay in the Workplace
When thinking about injuries at the workplace, many of the first things that often come to mind are single-employee accidents like slips and trips, muscle strains from lifting heavy objects, or cuts and bruises from sometimes-improper use of machinery. But what happens when an employee’s work injuries are caused
It can be a disheartening fact of life for employers that, even when they do everything right and follow all applicable safety rules and regulations to the letter, employee injuries can still happen. It is also often frustrating that those injuries, even in the absence of any wrongdoing by the employer, will result in workers’
A string of recent inquiries from clients and colleagues suggests that it might be a good time to post this reminder: for the Ohio BWC, a drug-free workplace still means a marijuana-free workplace.
Under the BWC’s Drug-Free Safety Program (DFSP), sometimes also referred to as its Drug-Free Workplace Program (DFWP), Ohio employers can qualify for
The Bureau of Workers’ Compensation (BWC) began the new year with a rate reduction for Ohio’s public employers, estimating that those employers will pay nearly $17 million less in workers’ compensation insurance premiums next year thanks to the cut. The BWC announced that this 10% rate reduction was made possible by a decline in injury
Since the start of the pandemic, much of the discourse regarding COVID-19 and workers’ compensation has centered around questions of compensability—that is, under what circumstances contraction of COVID-19 can qualify as a compensable workers’ compensation claim, what types of benefits are available for covered employees, and what types of defenses employers may have at their
In 2020, the Ohio BWC decided to return a total of nearly $8 billion in dividends to Ohio employers over the course of the year. Although the amount of the dividends reflected an effort to assist employers reeling from the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, dividend returns are not exclusively a COVID-19 relief effort; any
On May 13, 2021, the CDC issued new guidance that, in non-health care settings, “fully vaccinated people no longer need to wear a mask or physically distance in any setting, except where required by federal, state, local, tribal, or territorial laws, rules, and regulations, including local business and workplace guidance.” The CDC considers people to
With recent weather happenings leaving much of Ohio covered in varying degrees of snow, ice, and that all-too-familiar gray slush that ensues as it all melts, re-freezes, and melts again, now seems like a good time to discuss the workers’ compensation implications when employees get hurt trying to traverse this sometimes perilous terrain.
In Ohio,
In November, the Ohio BWC approved Governor DeWine’s request to send another $5 billion in dividends to Ohio employers. The dividend payments come in the form of paper checks, which the state began mailing out to employers on December 10, 2020, or as credits to employers’ accounts for those employers with outstanding balances owed to