§ 28-34-7 - Concealment of previous disease – Occupational disease as partial cause. - Rhode Island Statutes

SECTION 28-34-7

   § 28-34-7  Concealment of previous disease– Occupational disease as partial cause. – No compensation shall be payable for an occupational disease if the employee,at the time of entering into the employment of the employer by whom thecompensation would otherwise be payable, or thereafter, willfully and falselyrepresents in writing that he or she has not previously had the disease whichis the cause of the disability or death. Where an occupational disease isaggravated by any other disease or infirmity, not itself compensable, or wheredisability or death from any other cause, not itself compensable, isaggravated, prolonged, accelerated, or in any way contributed to by anoccupational disease, the compensation payable shall be the proportion only ofthe compensation that would be payable if the occupational disease were thesole cause of the disability or death as that occupational disease, as acausative factor, bears to all the causes of that disability or death, thereduction in compensation to be effected by reducing the number of weeklypayments or the amounts of the payments, as under the circumstances of theparticular case may be for the best interests of the claimant or claimants.