Bills that would overhaul the law governing compensable workplace injuries and those suffered while traveling were filed in Illinois Friday.
H.B. 1253, which would take effective immediately upon passage, would provide “that an injury arises out of and in the course of employment only if the accident significantly caused or contributed to both the resulting condition and the disability,” according to a bill synopsis.
Paperwork related to the bill also states that “an injury does not arise out of and in the course of employment if (1) the hazard or risk was not incidental to employment and was a hazard or risk to which the general public is also exposed, (2) the injury did not occur at a time and place and under circumstances reasonably required by the employment, or (3) the disability resulted from a personal risk.”
The bill would also limit conditions under which repetitive or cumulative trauma is compensable, stating that “gradual deterioration or progressive degeneration of the body caused by aging is not compensable as repetitive or cumulative trauma.”
A synopsis for H.B. 1257 states that “accidental injuries sustained while traveling to or from work do not arise out of and in the course of employment, except under specified circumstances.”
Such circumstances are outlined in the synopsis: “if at the time of the injury, the employee was performing acts the employer instructed the employee to perform, acts that the employee had a common law or statutory duty to perform while performing duties for his or her employer, or acts that the employee might be reasonably expected to perform incident to his or her assigned duties.”
This article was first published in Business Insurance.
