Union: City Rejects Houston FF's COVID-19 Benefits Claim

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The city has rejected a Houston firefighter’s claim for workers compensation benefits over exposure to the coronavirus, the first such claim filed during the pandemic, the firefighters’ union said Friday.

Tristar Risk Management, the third-party claims administrator that handles workers’ compensation for the city, told the firefighter “there is no evidence that … the risk of contracting COVID-19 is inherent in your specific type of employment or that disease was indigenous to your work or present in an increased degree in that work.”

Marty Lancton, president of the Houston Professional Fire Fighters Association, also said the city is requiring firefighters to use vacation or sick time while in quarantine.

Houston Fire Chief Sam Peña disputed the union’s account. He said firefighters who are placed in quarantine are “initially carried on worker’s compensation.” And if a quarantined firefighter does not develop symptoms, meet testing criteria or receive medical care, and his claim is denied, Peña said the city does not reduce the sick or vacation time he has accrued.

“The result is that no out-of-pocket costs is incurred, and no reduction in benefit time will be experienced by the employee,” Peña said.

Any city employee that tests positive for the coronavirus “will be presumed to have a work-related acquired COVID-19 illness,” according to Peña.

Tristar’s response to the firefighter indicated that he had tested negative for COVID-19.

It also stated that “An occupational disease does not include an ordinary disease of life to which the general public is exposed outside of employment.”

Last week, Houston firefighters began wearing more personal protective equipment when responding to 9-1-1 calls, to better shield them from the virus. And they now have been instructed to assume that every patient is infected, Peña said.

By Thursday, 12 Houston firefighters had tested positive for COVID-19, two of whom have recovered, according to Peña. Another 173 firefighters were in quarantine, which has not yet prevented HFD from staffing its vehicles but is nonetheless straining the department, Peña said.

In a statement, Lancton blasted Mayor Sylvester Turner, who he has feuded with over firefighters’ pay and the city’s denial of cancer-related workers’ comp benefits.

“The Turner Administration just sent a despicable message to Houston firefighters and paramedics: Do your dangerous job and do it well, but if we mandatorily quarantine you or you contract the COVID-19 virus, you may be on your own,” Lancton said.

The city has battled for years with Houston firefighters who sought workers’ compensation benefits over exposure to carcinogens on the job. Fires regularly expose first responders to cancer-causing chemicals, including formaldehyde, benzene, arsenic and petroleum byproducts, according to the International Agency for Research on Cancer.

Still, 91 percent of workers’ comp cancer claims in Texas were rejected from 2012 to 2018. Cities have generally interpreted state law to cover only non-Hodgkin's lymphoma and testicular and prostate cancer, though the Legislature passed a bill last year expanding the state’s presumptive cancer statute to cover eight other illnesses.

Kevin Leago, a senior captain with the Houston Fire Department, died of neuroendocrine cancer in December, months after successfully appealing the city’s denial of his workers’ comp claim. The city argued his illness was unrelated to the job, but a panel of judges found the initial ruling against Leago was “so against the great weight and preponderance of the evidence as to be clearly wrong or manifestly unjust.”

Mike Sprain, the union’s outside legal counsel who also represented Leago, said firefighters cannot practice “social distancing” during certain medical situations, including when they transport sick or injured patients to the hospital.

“Other jurisdictions around the nation have already taken action to protect their first responders,” Sprain said. “It is time for the City of Houston to do the same. Anything less is completely unacceptable.”

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