In June 2020 the Colorado legislature signed a bill expanding the eligibility for benefits for workers who are exposed to psychologically traumatic events. Specifically, an employee may establish that a visual or audible exposure to serious bodily injury or death, may create a workers’ compensation injury.
The specific language of the bill provides:
For the purpose of determining eligibility for workers’ compensation benefits for a mental impairment caused by an accidental injury that consists of a psychologically traumatic event arising out of and in the course of employment, the act establishes that a worker’s audible or visual and audible exposure to the serious bodily injury or death, or the immediate aftermath of the serious bodily injury or death, of one or more people as the result of a violent event, the intentional act of another person, or an accident is a “psychologically traumatic event.”