High court rules grocery worker’s mold-related illness compensable

A grocery store worker whose doctor attributed the “breakdown of his health” to mold exposure at work suffered an “injury-by-disease,” the Supreme Court of Hawaii ruled Tuesday, overturning an earlier ruling that vacated his workers compensation claim.

Jay Cadiz was working in the meat department at a Times Supermarket chain store in Honolulu in 2004 when he “began to feel sick all the time” after he had previously been healthy and exercised regularly, according to documents in Jay D. Cadiz v. QSI, Inc. and First Insurance Company of Hawaii, Ltd.

Mr. Cadiz, whose case included documents pertaining to toxins in his body and testimony about moldy conditions at the grocery store, filed a workers compensation claim for injury-by-disease.

The state Labor and Industrial Relations Appeals Board rejected his claim, concluding that “the employer's reports based on three independent medical examinations provided sufficient substantial evidence to overcome the statutory presumption in favor of compensability,” documents state. A state Intermediate Court of Appeals affirmed, citing a lack of evidence, among other arguments.

The state’s highest court disagreed, stating in its opinion that Mr. Cadiz's “illnesses and symptoms reasonably appear to be work-connected. … The verified presence of harmful mycotoxins in Cadiz's body, correlated with the dramatically increased frequency of his visits to the doctor and the emergency room during the relevant period, together with the pervasive moldy conditions of the meat department, make Cadiz's claimed injury-by-disease reasonably appear to be work-connected and therefore compensable.”

The Supreme Court remanded the case back to the board for further proceeding consistent with its decision.