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Presumption in firefighter cancer case rejected

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firefighter

The Supreme Court of Rhode Island rejected an argument that the state’s statutes contain a conclusive presumption that all cancers suffered by firefighters are occupational cancers.

In Lang v. Municipal Employees’ Retirement System, the Rhode Island high court in a 4-1 decision on Wednesday quashed an appellate court’s award of accidental disability benefits to a firefighter suffering from colon cancer.

Kevin Lang worked as a firefighter for the City of Cranston, Rhode Island, for 16 years when he was diagnosed with colon cancer. He was placed on injury-on-duty status and began receiving benefits. In 2014, two years after his diagnosis, he applied for accidental disability benefits, but the Municipal Employees’ Retirement System of Rhode Island system found that he failed to prove that his cancer arose out of and in the course of his employment as a firefighter and denied his application. Mr. Lang appealed the decision to the Rhode Island Workers Compensation Court, Appellate Division, arguing that under state statutes, all cancers contracted by firefighters are presumed to be work related. During the proceedings, Mr. Lang presented reports from five physicians who all agreed that he was permanently disabled due to the cancer but none could definitively state that the cancer resulted from exposures that occurred while he worked as a firefighter.

The appellate court held that the statute did create a conclusive presumption that all cancers in firefighters arose out of and in the course of their employment and granted Mr. Lang accidental disability retirement benefits. The retirement system appealed, but the appellate court affirmed the decision. The fund then sought a review by the Rhode Island Supreme Court, which was granted.

The retirement system argued that the compensation court erred by identifying cancer as an occupational disease under the act and concluding that the date of diagnosis of the cancer is the date of injury for the purposes of determining the ability of a cancer applicant to appeal. The justices found that the statute contained “no limiting language” and that the state’s Assembly specified the compensability of “occupational” cancers defined as a "a cancer arising out of his or her employment as a firefighter, due to injury from exposures to smoke, fumes, or carcinogenic, poisonous, toxic, or chemical substances while in the performance of active duty in the fire department." However, the justices said they believe the Assembly “intended that an occupational cancer be proven before a firefighter is entitled to receive occupational cancer disability benefits” and disagreed that lawmakers would have created a conclusive presumption that “would have extended such broad benefits to all firefighters without expressly providing for such in clear and unambiguous language.”

Justice Francis Flaherty disagreed with the majority regarding the compensability of Mr. Lang’s cancer, arguing that the statute noted that firefighters are often “exposed simultaneously to multiple carcinogens” and that there had been a rise of cancer diagnoses among firefighters because of those toxic substances.

“… [T]he statute is remedial in nature in that it creates new rights for firefighters who have been stricken with cancer and provides a remedy for them,” he wrote. “…[T]he Workers' Compensation Court is correct and should be affirmed in its entirety.”

 

 

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