Clock is Ticking on Reporting Covid19 Cases! - Greg Grinberg
This article is reposted from WCDefenseCA.com, a blog published by Gregory Grinberg, Managing Partner of Gale, Sutow & Associates SF Bay South Office. The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of Gale, Sutow & Associates.
Happy Monday, dear readers!
Your humble blogger appears to be solar powered, as the blogging energy is strongest when the sun is shining, the air is transparent, and the joy of explaining to a lien claimant why interpreting an 18-month statute of limitation to mean 18-months plus however long it took to file the lien is not persuasive is behind me for the moment.
So, quick exercise for all the employers out there (and those who love and/or advise them). Crack open your calendar and flip to October 30, 2020. Why is this day so important? Well, that’s because it is 30 business days after September 17, 2020.
Now, you might be thinking to yourself that the humble blogger is technically correct, but so what?
Well September 17 was a busy day – so many things happened and not the least of them was Governor Newsom signing into law the compliance nightmare known as SB1159.
As part of SB1159, Labor Code section 3212.88 now requires employers to report ALL Covid19 positive test results of their employees, whether claimed as industrial or not, to the employer’s claims administrator. If the collection of the sample leading to a positive Covid19 diagnosis occurred between July 6 and September 16, 2020, the employer has 30 business days from September 17, 2020, to report it to the claims administrator… along with every location the employee worked the 14 days prior to the diagnosis as well as “the highest number of employees who reported to work at each of the employee’s specific places of employment on any given work day between July 6, 2020 and” September 17, 2020.
So, my dear readers, it’s time to start calculating employee attendance at every location between those two dates, as the clock is ticking to make that reporting.
On the bright side, if you get your reporting done on time, you can then enjoy Halloween guilt free, although if you REALLY want to confuse children, disappoint your friends, and possibly give your workers’ compensation colleagues anxiety, you can dress up as the Labor Commissioner and hand out $10,000 fines for failure to make timely reports on Covid19 exposure.
“Happy” Monday indeed, my beloved readers!