An employee is at home for a workers' compensation injury receiving TD. He contracts measles from one of his children. What are you liable for?

• A. Medical treatment and indemnity for the injury only.
• B. Medical treatment for the measles pursuant to compensable consequences doctrine.
• C. Medical treatment for both maladies.
• D. Medical treatment and indemnity.

Answer: (B)

Compensable consequences doctrine explains this scenario. When a workers’ compensation injury is being treated, conditions that arise as a natural consequence of that injury or its treatment are eligible for medical benefits. Here, the employee is at home recovering on temporary disability for a work injury, and he contracts measles from a child. The measles is treated as a consequence of being in the environment created by the compensable injury and its management, so medical treatment for the measles is covered under the doctrine.

Indemnity (wage loss) would only apply if the measles itself caused additional work disability that is compensable; simply contracting the illness does not automatically trigger new indemnity beyond what applies to the original injury. Therefore, the liability is for medical treatment of the measles under compensable consequences doctrine, not for indemnity or for treatment of both conditions.