Court: Workers’ Comp Bars Tort Claims Over Deadly Explosion
- A Wisconsin appeals court has held that Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co. does not have to face civil tort claims over a May 2017 explosion that killed five workers and injured more than a dozen others at a corn milling and biofuels plant in Cambria, Wisconsin, because the incident is covered by workers’ compensation.
- In Hayden Dodge v. Didion Milling Inc. and Nationwide Mutual Insurance Co., the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District IV, affirmed a Columbia County circuit court’s summary judgment dismissing claims brought by 11 plaintiffs against Didion Milling and Nationwide, finding the claims were barred by the exclusive-remedy provision of Wisconsin’s Workers’ Compensation Act.
- The plaintiffs argued that the explosion was covered under workers’ compensation law because it was foreseeable or even intentional, citing workers who had raised safety concerns about possible fires and the lack of action after a separate fire had broken out just two days before the blast.
- The appellate judges weren’t persuaded, finding no proof that anyone had actually anticipated an explosion of this specific scale or timing, and warning that treating vague safety concerns as proof of foreseeability would undercut the entire bargain underlying the workers’ compensation bargain.
Study Offers Glimpse of Benefits of Cannabis in Workers’ Comp
- A study published in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine documented what its authors call the first formal reimbursement of medical cannabis through a state workers’ compensation program, after Colorado’s Special Funds Program reimbursed a 74-year-old patient with a legacy lumbar spine injury and longstanding opioid dependence for doctor-prescribed medical cannabis.
- Only oral cannabis formulations were reimbursed and the patient reported lower pain, improved mobility and quality of life, a 17% reduction in hydrocodone use over 12 months. They also stopped using vaporized cannabis with no adverse safety events.
- Lead author Dr. Ethan Moses cautioned the single-patient study cannot isolate cannabis as the definitive cause of those improvements, but said pilot addressed two systemic gaps: a safety issue, since patients often used cannabis without informing physicians, and an equity issue, since only patients who could pay out of pocket could access dispensary cannabis.
- Broader insurance coverage would likely hinge on federal rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III, which wouldn’t mandate coverage but would remove major legal barriers and expand clinical research. Colorado’s constitution separately bars requiring insurers to cover medical cannabis, and New Mexico has already built cannabis into its workers’ compensation fee schedule since 2025 as a parallel model.