Breaking News on Medical Marijuana in Maine Workers’ Compensation

We have just learned that the State of Maine Supreme Judicial Court, sitting as the Law Court, has accepted Bourgoin v. Twin Rivers Paper Co., L.L.C., and Decision No. 16-26, one of a pair of Administrative Law Judge decisions addressing medical marijuana that the Appellate Division affirmed last summer. The Law Court will examine the question of whether the Administrative Law Judge erred by compelling reimbursement for medical marijuana as reasonable and necessary under the Workers’ Compensation Act, despite the fact that marijuana remains a Schedule I drug under federal law. Further, the Law Court will address the question of whether the carve out under the Maine Medical Marijuana Act for “public health insurers” serves to bar an order compelling reimbursement by an insurer under the Maine Workers’ Compensation Act. One has also to imagine that the impact of the Supremacy Clause will be part of the analysis, as well. We will monitor this matter and share up-to-the minute information as the issue moves through review and determination by the Law Court.