HB532 Alabama 2021 Session

Summary

Primary Sponsor

Russell BedsoleRepresentative

Republican

Co-Sponsors

Tommy HanesMike HolmesEd OliverRex ReynoldsProncey RobertsonAllen TreadawayTim Wadsworth

Session

Regular Session 2021

Title

Firefighters, occupational disease, to provide further for which cancers are included within meaning of firefighter's occupational disease, Sec. 11-43-144 am'd.

Description

Under existing law, if a non-volunteer firefighter develops a disability that impairs his or her ability to perform his or her duties as a firefighter, or dies in the line of duty as a firefighter, the firefighter, or his or her dependents, is eligible for compensation for the disability or death. The compensation for disability applies if the firefighter, upon entering into service as a firefighter for a municipality, has passed a successful physical examination that did not show any evidence of a firefighter's occupational disease.

Also under existing law, cancer is recognized as a firefighter's occupational disease if the firefighter can establish that he or she was exposed while in the employ of the city, to a known carcinogen that is reasonably linked to the disabling cancer. A firefighter who develops a firefighter's occupational disease is presumed to have developed the disease in the course of duty.

This bill would provide that when a firefighter who develops cancer within 10 years of his or her last date of employment with a municipality, the cancer is presumed to be a firefighter's occupational disease, thus rendering the firefighter eligible for disability benefits, if it is established that the firefighter, while in the employ of the municipality, was exposed to a known carcinogen that is reasonably linked to the disabling cancer.

Show more Show less

Subjects

Firefighters