More California public employees would get workers’ compensation for skin cancer under bill

California game wardens and park rangers are at elevated risk for skin cancer by the nature of their work outdoors. Now, lawmakers are advancing a bill that would remove barriers to workers’ compensation benefits associated with that diagnosis for them.

Assembly bill 334, authored by Assemblyman Kevin Mullin, D-South San Francisco, would make it easier for game wardens and park rangers with skin cancer to receive workers’ compensation benefits by creating what’s a called presumption for the disease.

That means an adjuster considering a workers’ compensation claim for skin cancer would automatically grant it rather than require the employee to submit evidence to prove the disease was a work-related injury.

California police, lifeguards and many other public safety employees already receive that presumption for skin cancer.

In a statement, Mullin said he wrote the bill when he “learned that many of our California wardens and park rangers have had to exhaust all of their sick and vacation leave while fighting skin cancer,” Mullin said.

“If there is any predictable malady that affects wildlife officers and park rangers because of their occupation, it is skin cancer. Having to sue to qualify for coverage when affected by basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma, or worse, melanoma, because of sun exposure from their occupation is inefficient and expensive for all involved. For some it has proven to be fatal,” he said.

The bill is supported by several organizations, including the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association and the California Fish & Game Warden Supervisors and Managers Association, the latter of which noted that almost all other California state and local peace officers already qualify for that presumption.

“AB 334 would ensure that wildlife officers and park rangers — whose jobs clearly involve extensive occupational exposure to the sun — get the same presumption,” the group said in a statement of support for the bill.

The bill is opposed by Allied Managed Care and Acclamation Insurance Management Services.

The groups argued — in a Senate Committee on Labor, Public Employment and Retirement analysis — that AB 334 is not needed because workers’ compensation claims are accepted by employers at a rate of nearly 90%.

It further argued that by granting a presumption, worker claims would not be eligible for apportionment, which refers to the practice of calculating how much of an injury is the employer’s responsibility.

“This would mean that consideration of other underlying conditions and non-industrial injuries would not be allowed and any permanent disability claims would have to be allotted to the employer at 100%,” according to the analysis.

The bill is currently being considered by the Senate Appropriations Committee. It passed the Assembly in May by a vote of 76 to 0.