The state’s top court has agreed to hear a case that turns on whether employers must pay for CBD oil and other over-the-counter products under Pennsylvania’s workers’ compensation program.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court will consider several questions, including whether workers’ comp law requires employers and their insurers to reimburse injured workers who buy CBD oil and other over-the-counter products with their own money.
Also at issue is whether workers seeking reimbursement would need to submit supporting documents, such as a doctor’s prescription.
The Philadelphia-area attorney at the center of the case, Mark Schmidt, has argued that CBD oil and other over-the-counter products should be covered if they help workers return to their jobs, which saves employers from having to cover lost wages.
“That was actually my intent in bringing the case,” Schmidt said in an interview last week.
How did this start: Schmidt, who represents injured workers, aggravated an existing back injury while at work in 2017.
Schmidt began taking OxyContin and Oxycodone, but the pain grew worse.
Schmidt ruled out heavier doses, fearing they would interfere with his ability to represent clients. He also wanted to avoid surgery — and the time away from his job that it would require.
As an alternative, his doctor prescribed CBD oil. But Schmidt’s law firm, Media-based Schmidt Kirifides and Rassias, refused to cover it.
Then what: The dispute went to an administrative appeals board, which sided with the law firm, in part over concerns that employers and insurers would end up paying for all kinds of over-the-counter remedies.
But Commonwealth Court backed Schmidt in a split decision handed down last fall. The ruling hinged, in part, on whether CBD oil was a “medicine or supply” as defined in Pennsylvania’s workers’ comp law.
The law firm appealed the lower court’s decision to the state’s highest court.
“We’re grateful that the Supreme Court accepted our petition,” said John F. Kennedy, an attorney with Elias Mickle Kennedy, a Scranton-based law firm representing Schmidt Kirifides. He declined to comment further.
The trend: Changes in attitude and law around CBD and medical cannabis are triggering new issues for workers’ comp law.
In March 2023, Commonwealth Court ruled that workers’ comp coverage should extend to a prescription for medical cannabis.
