American employers have faced unprecedented adversity in keeping their businesses sustainable for the past year due to the world-wide novel coronavirus pandemic. Significantly, thousands of workers have lost time due to being infected themselves with the coronavirus. Among them are workers covered under the Longshore & Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act. Such workers include traditional longshoremen, off-shore oil workers and overseas defense-base contractors, who have begun filing COVID-19 claims for wage benefits and medical benefits under the Act and its extensions.

Employers and their insurance companies are now faced with many questions, beginning with “How do we assess these claims?” and “How do we defend these claims?’ To date, few COVID-19 claims have been litigated, and as of the publication of this article, no administrative law decisions associated with COVID-19 claims have been rendered.

In anticipating how these types of claims may play out before the Office of Workers’ Compensation Programs and the Office of Administrative Law Judges, there are two key legal issues that will impact how this novel disease would be treated under the Longshore & Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act:

1. (1)  Will COVID-19 be treated as an “accidental injury” or “occupational disease” for purposes of defining an “injury” under the Act?
2. (2)  How will courts analyze the statutory presumptions under the Act?