In a recent court case, the Appellate Division held that a workers’ compensation court order that the employer is responsible for the cost of the employee’s medical marijuana prescribed to manage chronic pain did not violate federal law. The plaintiff in Hager v. M&K Construction, No. A-0102-18T3 (January 13, 2020), suffered a back injury while working on the employer’s construction site in 2001. The pain became so severe that he missed more than a decade of work and by the time his workers’ compensation case went to trial in 2016, he was prescribed medical marijuana to assist in getting him off of pain management medication. The employer argued that the workers’ compensation order to reimburse the employee for his medical marijuana violated the federal Controlled Substances Act (CSA), that the order required it to aid and abet the employee’s illegal use and possession of marijuana in violation of the CSA and that the workers’ compensation insurers should be treated as private health insurers, but the court disagreed.
