BWC Budget Bill Amends Workers’ Compensation Law

BWC Budget Bill Amends Workers’ Compensation Law

Posted: July, 2014

H.B. 493, the BWC budget bill, included a number of amendments to the workers’ compensation law. Here are some of the changes made by the bill, which the Governor signed on June 16, 2014:

  • Change in Coverage for Out of State Employees
    Amendments to R.C. 4123.01 and R.C. 4123.54 change the method of coverage for out of state residents injured while temporarily working on Ohio. These amendments remove a provision which had permitted such an individual to qualify as an employee under the Ohio workers’ compensation law, under certain circumstances. Instead, the amendments require such individuals to pursue workers’ compensation benefits under the laws of the state where they reside, rather than Ohio.
  • Administrator as Named Party on R.C. 4123.512 Appeal
    The bill added a requirement for filing a notice of appeal from the Industrial Commission to the Court of Common Pleas. R.C. 4123.512, the statute setting forth the requirements for such appeals, already provided that the Administrator of the BWC would be considered a party to the appeal. However, the statute had only required that the claimant and the employer be named parties in the appeal. The budget bill added a requirement that the administrator be named as a party to the appeal.
  • “Private Employer” Defined
    The law already defined self-insured employers and public employers. The budget bill defines “private employer” to describe employers identified in R.C.4123.01(B)(2) – which includes “[e]very person, firm, professional employer organization, and private corporation . . . that (a) has in service one or more employees or shared employees regularly in the same business or in or about the same establishment under any contract of hire, express or implied, oral or written, or (b) is bound by any such contract of hire or by any other written contract.”
Information courtesy of the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Bulletin. Subscribe to the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Bulletin to keep informed about the Ohio workers’ compensation system.