Fowler v. Perdue Farms, 2023 WL 6888918 (Del. Super. Oct. 18, 2023)
Mr. Fowler alleged that he suffered a compensable COVID-19 exposure while working as a “boxer” at a poultry processing plant. The Industrial Accident Board determined that the claimant sustained his burden to prove that he more likely than not contracted COVID-19 in the cafeteria at work. However, the Board found that the claimant did not prove his occupation attached a hazard of contracting COVID-19 greater than that attendant to employment in general. The claimant appealed to the Superior Court.
The Supreme Court established the legal standard to determine whether there is a compensable occupational disease in Air Mod v. Newton and Anderson v. General Motors Corp. Air Mod defined a compensable occupational disease as “one resulting from the peculiar nature of the employment, i.e., from working conditions which produce the disease as a natural incident of the particular occupation, attaching to that occupation a hazard different from, and in excess of, the hazards attending employment in general.” The Anderson court opined that the disease cannot result from the “stimuli ‘of the everyday world’ and that [t]here must be a recognizable link between the disease and some distinctive feature of the claimant's job.”
The Superior Court agreed with the Board that the evidence showed that the cafeteria on the employer’s premises presented a greater hazard than that connected to employment in general. However, the hazard was not distinct from that attending employment in general. The court cited reasoned decisions from the Ohio Court of Appeals to emphasize that COVID-19 is a disease of everyday life to which the public is exposed. The Workers’ Compensation Act should not be transformed into a health insurance statute. Large cafeterias or gatherings at work were a hazard attending employment in general. Mr. Fowler’s job as a boxer in a chicken plant did not predispose him to COVID-19 more than any other occupation. Lastly, the court opined that there was substantial evidence in the record to support the Board’s decision. The decision of the IAB was affirmed.
