Rainey v. Director, Office of Workers' Compensation

KATZMANN, Circuit Judge:

The Longshore and Harbor Workers’ Compensation Act (LHWCA), 33 U.S.C. § 901 et seq., creates a presumption of causation: covered workers who suffer a harm that workplace conditions could have caused, aggravated, or accelerated benefit from § 920(a), which presumes, in the absence of substantial evidence to the contrary, that their claims for compensation fall within the regulatory scheme created by the LHWCA. 33 U.S.C. § 920(a). This case calls on us to address the nature of the evidence that an employer must introduce in order to rebut this presumption. We hold that…