Utah: High Court Remands Case to Determine If Lead Poisoning Was Occupational Disease or Physical Injury Claim

The Supreme Court of Utah noted that although the intentional tort exception to workers’ compensation exclusivity clearly applied to claims governed by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Act (WCA), the issue had never been decided for claims governed by the state’s Occupational Disease Act (ODA). Accordingly, where the worker sustained lead poisoning brought about, he contended, by intentional exposure to excessive amounts of lead in the workplace, the trial court had to determine first if his lead poisoning was a physical injury or an occupational disease. Once that issue was determined, the trial court was required to rule as to whether the intentional tort exception applied to the tort claim.

Thomas A. Robinson, J.D., the co-Editor-in-Chief and Feature National Columnist for the LexisNexis Workers’ Compensation eNewsletter, is co-author of Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law(LexisNexis).

LexisNexis Online Subscribers: Citations below link to Lexis Advance.

See Kay v. Barnes Bullets, 2021 UT 64, 2021 Utah LEXIS 143 (Nov. 4, 2021)

See generally Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, § 103.03.

Source: Larson’s Workers’ Compensation Law, the nation’s leading authority on workers’ compensation law

For a more detailed discussion of the case, see

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