Gov. Newsom recently issued an Executive Order stating that employees are presumed to have contracted COVID-19 in the workplace for purposes of receiving workers’ compensation benefits if all of the following are met:

• The employee tested positive for or was diagnosed with COVID19 within 14 days after working at the employee’s place of employment at the employer’s direction;
• The work performed occurred between March 19, 2020 and July 5, 2020;
• The employee’s place of employment was not the employee’s home or residence; and
• If basing a claim on a diagnosis of COVID-19, the diagnosis must be done by a physician who holds a physician and surgeon license issued by the California Medical Board, and the diagnosis must be confirmed by further testing within 30 days of the date of the diagnosis.

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The Massachusetts Dept. of Criminal Justice Information Services (DCJIS) recently issued emergency regulations modifying the process for verifying the identity of an individual for whom a background check will be run through DCJIS’s iCORI database (CORI). As part of the normal CORI process, individuals must provide written authorization to run their criminal history and requestors must verify the individual’s identity in person. Because employers must limit in-person interactions due to COVID-19 and associated public safety restrictions, requestors can verify an applicant’s identity via teleconference rather than the usual in-person process.

Additionally, if a requestor is unable to verify an individual’s identity in person, by notary, or by teleconference, then the requestor may petition DCJIS for approval to use an alternative means to verify identity. Upon termination of the current state of emergency, all CORI requests verified in this manner must be verified either in person or through submitting a notarized CORI Acknowledgement Form within seven business days. Employers should track all individuals verified pursuant to these emergency measures in order to later obtain timely identification verifications.

Action Items

In response to the global pandemic, the state of New York implemented emergency paid sick leave provisions.  On April 3, 2020, Governor Andrew Cuomo signed into law the 2021 fiscal year budget, inclusive of a new bill that enacts a permanent statewide sick leave program, effective later this year.

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On April 22, 2020, the Virginia 2020 General Assembly Session reconvened and passed a number of bills impacting employment practices.  Virginia employers will need to get ready for numerous changes, which include new regulations on LGBT anti-discrimination measures, wage theft prevention, worker misclassification, and more.  All are effective July 1, 2020 (unless otherwise noted below).

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