
Last month, California Governor Gavin Newsom signed an executive order naming COVID-19 as a rebuttable presumption, making it easier for workers who contract the illness to claim and collect workers’ compensation.
With this move, the governor shifted the burden of proof from employee to employer in cases where COVID-related claims are filed. In courts, a rebuttable presumption is assumed to be true unless it is proven otherwise. This means that, if an employee in California becomes sick with COVID-19 and files a workers’ compensation claim, it will be assumed to have been contracted on the job unless the employer proves otherwise.