Relates to benefits for police officers, firefighters, and other emergency personnel diagnosed with PTSD by making their injury compensable if it cannot be shown, by a preponderance of evidence, that the PTSD was caused by factors unrelated to their occupation.
STATE OF NEW YORK
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11294
IN ASSEMBLY
July 25, 2018
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Introduced by COMMITTEE ON RULES -- (at request of M. of A. Ortiz) --
read once and referred to the Committee on Labor
AN ACT to amend the workers' compensation law, in relation to benefits
for police officers, firefighters, and other emergency personnel diag-
nosed with PTSD
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. Subdivision 3 of section 10 of the workers' compensation
2 law is amended by adding a new paragraph (c) to read as follows:
3 (c) Where a police officer, firefighter, emergency medical technician,
4 paramedic, emergency dispatcher or other person certified to provide
5 medical care in emergencies is diagnosed by a psychiatrist or psychol-
6 ogist to have post-traumatic stress disorder, it shall be presumed to
7 have been incurred during service in the line of duty and shall be
8 compensable, unless it is shown by a preponderance of the evidence that
9 the post-traumatic stress disorder was caused by nonservice-connected
10 risk factors or nonservice-connected exposure. Such person who is diag-
11 nosed with post-traumatic stress disorder within three years of the last
12 active date of employment as a police officer, firefighter, emergency
13 medical technician, paramedic, emergency dispatcher or other person
14 certified to provide medical care in emergencies shall be eligible for
15 benefits under this subdivision.
16 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD16416-01-8