Workers’ Comp Report on California’s Proposed Presumption for Agricultural Heat Injuries

A bill that would give a presumption of compensability to farmworker heat-related injury claims if an employer is found to be out of compliance with Cal/OSHA’s outdoor heat illness prevention standard would likely create more challenges than it would solve, a California Workers’ Compensation Institute analysis shows.

The CWCI analysis also shows the bill would create administrative friction costs, and it won’t likely have much impact on agricultural worker safety.

CWCI’s analysis of Senate Bill 1299 analyzes the population of agricultural workers covered by the legislation. It also measures the percentage of workers’ compensation claims filed by agricultural workers that involve heat-related injuries, and compares the percentage of heat-related claims in the agriculture sector to the percentage for non-agricultural workers covered by the high-heat procedures in Cal/OSHA’s heat illness prevention Standard. Lastly, the analysis considers the impact of the legislation on the California workers’ comp system.

Among the study’s findings:

• Despite global warming and climate change, there were few agricultural heat illness claims in California workers’ comp. CWCI’s review of more than 3.2 million claims filed by workers from 2019 through 2023 found that 659 of the 100,777 claims filed by agricultural workers were due to heat-related illness.
• The small percentage of claims involving heat illnesses likely reflects the success of Cal/OSHA’s outdoor heat illness prevention standard, enacted in 2005 and amended in 2015. The standard requires, among other things, access to shade and water, active monitoring of employees who need to acclimatize to heat, supervisor and employee training, and a heat illness plan.
• Outdoor agricultural workers have a workers’ comp claim denial rate of 11.0%, which is lower than the 12.4% to 13.3% denial rates for other outdoor occupations covered by the Cal/OSHA outdoor heat standard, and lower than the 14.7% denial rate for all claims.

The CWCI issued an impact analysis report that is available for free under the Research tab on the institute’s website.