Senate committee hears testimony on bill to extend PTSD workers’‑comp presumption to state correctional staff

The Senate Labor & Commerce Committee held a public hearing on Senate Bill 5043, which would create a rebuttable presumption that post‑traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affecting correctional facility workers at Department of Corrections (DOC) state prisons is an occupational disease covered by industrial insurance.

Committee staff member Susan Jones opened the item and described the bill as a proposed substitute that modifies the definition of “correctional facility worker” and carves the group into the workers’ compensation framework. Jones told the committee that the Department of Labor and Industries (LNI) had adopted a rule excluding most stress‑caused mental conditions from the definition of occupational disease, but that the rule already provides for single‑event traumatic exposures in some public‑safety occupations and makes limited exceptions for firefighters, law enforcement officers, 911 operators and some nurses.

The proposed substitute would make that LNI exclusion inapplicable to PTSD claims by correctional facility workers who have been employed in a fully compensated DOC facility in Washington for at least 90 consecutive days. It would create a rebuttable presumption that a claimant’s PTSD is an occupational disease, subject to proof otherwise by a preponderance of the evidence. The presumption would extend following termination of employment for three calendar months for each year worked, up to 60 months after separation. The bill also narrows coverage to employees of DOC correctional facilities in total confinement and expressly excludes facilities operated under contract with the DOC.

Why it matters: witnesses…