New Jersey bill would expand heart-attack benefits for first responders

A labor committee with the New Jersey Assembly on Thursday revived 2022 legislation that would include emergency dispatchers, emergency medical technicians, and volunteer emergency response workers to the list of first responders who qualify for benefits for cardiac events on presumption that their work caused their condition.

A.B. 161, now sent to the Assembly Appropriations Committee for further consideration, would also expand parameters for rebutting the presumption to include “use of casual factors such as horseplay, skylarking, self-infliction, voluntary intoxication, and illicit drug use.

“Rebuttal of the presumption based upon medical causation shall require clear and convincing medical evidence that the work experience was not a substantial cause of the cardiovascular or cerebrovascular injury,” the bill states.