Minnesota Session Laws - 1988, Regular Session

  

                         Laws of Minnesota 1988 

                        CHAPTER 717-S.F.No. 2452 
           An act relating to public safety; providing that bomb 
          disposal workers are state employees when disposing of 
          bombs outside the jurisdiction of their municipal 
          employer, for purposes of tort claims and workers' 
          compensation; establishing a presumption of causation 
          for workers compensation purposes in the case of 
          firefighters exposed to certain hazards; amending 
          Minnesota Statutes 1986, section 176.011, subdivision 
          15; and Minnesota Statutes 1987 Supplement, section 
          3.732, subdivision 1; proposing coding for new law in 
          Minnesota Statutes, chapter 176. 
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA: 
    Section 1.  Minnesota Statutes 1987 Supplement, section 
3.732, subdivision 1, is amended to read:  
    Subdivision 1.  [DEFINITIONS.] As used in this section and 
section 3.736 the terms defined in this section have the 
meanings given them. 
    (1) "State" includes each of the departments, boards, 
agencies, commissions, courts, and officers in the executive, 
legislative, and judicial branches of the state of Minnesota and 
includes but is not limited to the Minnesota housing finance 
agency, the Minnesota higher education coordinating board, the 
Minnesota higher education facilities authority, the armory 
building commission, the Minnesota zoological board, the state 
agricultural society, the University of Minnesota, state 
universities, community colleges, state hospitals, and state 
penal institutions.  It does not include a city, town, county, 
school district, or other local governmental body corporate and 
politic. 
    (2) "Employee of the state" means all present or former 
officers, members, directors, or employees of the state, members 
of the Minnesota national guard, members of a bomb disposal unit 
approved by the commissioner of public safety and employed by a 
municipality defined in section 466.01 when engaged in the 
disposal or neutralization of bombs outside the jurisdiction of 
the municipality but within the state, or persons acting on 
behalf of the state in an official capacity, temporarily or 
permanently, with or without compensation, but does not include 
either an independent contractor or members of the Minnesota 
national guard while engaged in training or duty under United 
States Code, title 10, or United States Code, title 32, section 
316, 502, 503, 504, or 505, as amended through December 31, 1983.
    (3) "Scope of office or employment" means that the employee 
was acting on behalf of the state in the performance of duties 
or tasks lawfully assigned by competent authority. 
    Sec. 2.  [176.192] [BOMB DISPOSAL UNIT EMPLOYEES.] 
    For purposes of this chapter, a member of a bomb disposal 
unit approved by the commissioner of public safety and employed 
by a municipality defined in section 466.01, is considered a 
state employee when disposing of or neutralizing bombs or other 
similar hazardous explosives for another municipality or 
otherwise outside the jurisdiction of the employer-municipality 
but within the state. 
     Sec. 3.  Minnesota Statutes 1986, section 176.011, 
subdivision 15, is amended to read:  
    Subd. 15.  [OCCUPATIONAL DISEASE.] (a) "Occupational 
disease" means a disease arising out of and in the course of 
employment peculiar to the occupation in which the employee is 
engaged and due to causes in excess of the hazards ordinary of 
employment and shall include undulant fever.  Ordinary diseases 
of life to which the general public is equally exposed outside 
of employment are not compensable, except where the diseases 
follow as an incident of an occupational disease, or where the 
exposure peculiar to the occupation makes the disease an 
occupational disease hazard.  A disease arises out of the 
employment only if there be a direct causal connection between 
the conditions under which the work is performed and if the 
occupational disease follows as a natural incident of the work 
as a result of the exposure occasioned by the nature of the 
employment.  An employer is not liable for compensation for any 
occupational disease which cannot be traced to the employment as 
a direct and proximate cause and is not recognized as a hazard 
characteristic of and peculiar to the trade, occupation, 
process, or employment or which results from a hazard to which 
the worker would have been equally exposed outside of the 
employment.  
    (b) If immediately preceding the date of disablement or 
death, an employee was employed on active duty with an organized 
fire or police department of any municipality, as a member of 
the Minnesota state patrol, conservation officer service, state 
crime bureau, as a forest officer by the department of natural 
resources, or sheriff or full time deputy sheriff of any county, 
and the disease is that of myocarditis, coronary sclerosis, 
pneumonia or its sequel, and at the time of employment such 
employee was given a thorough physical examination by a licensed 
doctor of medicine, and a written report thereof has been made 
and filed with such organized fire or police department, with 
the Minnesota state patrol, conservation officer service, state 
crime bureau, department of natural resources, or sheriff's 
department of any county, which examination and report negatived 
any evidence of myocarditis, coronary sclerosis, pneumonia or 
its sequel, the disease is presumptively an occupational disease 
and shall be presumed to have been due to the nature of 
employment.  
    (c) A firefighter on active duty with an organized fire 
department who is unable to perform duties in the department by 
reason of a disabling cancer of a type caused by exposure to 
heat, radiation, or a known or suspected carcinogen, as defined 
by the International Agency for Research on Cancer, and the 
carcinogen is reasonably linked to the disabling cancer, is 
presumed to have an occupational disease under paragraph (a).  
If a firefighter who enters the service after August 1, 1988, is 
examined by a physician prior to being hired and the examination 
discloses the existence of a cancer of a type described in this 
paragraph, the firefighter is not entitled to the presumption 
unless a subsequent medical determination is made that the 
firefighter no longer has the cancer. 
    Approved May 4, 1988