Occupational disease claims cover conditions caused by workplace exposure over time, including respiratory disease from dust or chemicals, hearing loss, and certain cancers. Statutes typically require that the disease be characteristic of the employment and not an ordinary disease of life.
Repetitive trauma claims occupy a related category addressing cumulative physical injury.
Alternative Names:
Occupational Illness Claim, Industrial Disease
Why it Matters?
These claims present distinctive causation and timing problems. Notice and limitations periods typically run from when the worker knew or should have known the condition was work-related rather than from exposure, which can revive claims decades later. Apportionment among successive employers and between work and non-work causes such as smoking is contested, and states allocate liability differently, some to the last injurious exposure and others proportionally.
Frequently Confused with
Related terms
Frequently asked questions
When does the limitations period begin for occupational disease?
How is liability allocated among multiple employers?
