The Supreme Court of Minnesota, in a split decision involving two companion cases, held the federal Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C.S. §§ 801-971, preempts an order made pursuant to the state’s Workers’ Compensation Law requiring... Read More

Agreeing that an injured employee had sufficiently shown that medical marijuana represented reasonable and necessary medical treatment under New Jersey’s Workers’ Compensation Act, the Supreme Court of New Jersey affirmed a decision by a lower... Read More

The Supreme Court of New Hampshire reversed—for a second time—a decision of the state’s Compensation Appeals Board that had found workers’ compensation carriers for New Hampshire employers could not be required to reimburse an... Read More

In a case of first impression, a New York appellate court affirmed an order entered by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board allowing a medical treatment variance in the form of medical marijuana for an injured worker who suffered from continuing... Read More

The Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts held a workers' compensation insurer need not reimburse an injured employee for the costs of medical marijuana in spite of the fact that the worker was evaluated for, and was issued, a certification to enroll... Read More

The Supreme Court of Kansas agreed that the widow of a worker who sustained fatal injuries in a fall at work rebutted the presumption of intoxication afforded the employer where two drug tests showed the presence of marijuana in the worker's system... Read More

An Arkansas appellate court affirmed a decision by the state’s Workers’ Compensation Commission that a worker who suffered a partial traumatic amputation of a finger as she tried to dislodge material from a jammed cutting machine, and who... Read More

The Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey, in a case of first impression, affirmed a workers’ compensation judge’s finding that an employer was required to reimburse its employee for the employee’s use of medical marijuana... Read More

Signaling that at least in some cases, an employer and/or workers’ compensation carrier might be required to reimburse an injured worker for the cost of medical marijuana provided under New York’s version of the Compassionate Care Act, a state... Read More

A widow’s wrongful death action filed against her deceased husband’s employer for its failure to implement and maintain a substance abuse policy is barred by the exclusive remedy provisions of the Ohio Workers’ Compensation Act, held... Read More

In a decision that cast some light on the issue of medical marijuana use by workers’ compensation claimants in New Hampshire, but which did not answer all pertinent questions definitively, the state’s Supreme Court held that the Appeals Board... Read More

Reiterating that in Kansas, because of multiple concerns, the rules of evidence do not apply to workers’ compensation hearings, a Kansas appellate court held the state’s Workers’ Compensation Board should not have excluded the results... Read More

By John Stahl, Esq. The legal implications of decriminalizing limited marijuana-related activity in some states extend beyond basic challenges such as amending zoning laws to accommodate medical marijuana dispensaries. The associated increasingly large... Read More