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Showing posts with label Lawyer. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lawyer. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 27, 2014

The Word Didn't Get There

Problems with the national workers' compensation system are addressed in today guest post authored by David DePaola and shared from http://daviddepaolo.blogspot.com/
Then I get an email from a former claims professional turned auditor that completely deflates my enthusiasm and makes me angry.
The emailer has been in the process of auditing some cases on behalf of an insurance carrier whose cases are administered by a Third Party Administrator.
This is a pretty typical arrangement. Carriers are very good at "writing the paper" and all the processes involved from brokerage administration to determining the risk (underwriting) and marketing. Then the job of actually handling the claims gets outsourced to specialized companies: TPAs.
The auditor writes she's appalled; outraged at the lack of any sense of urgency, the lack of responsiveness to defense attorneys, not to mention applicant's attorneys.
She's astounded at the failure to pay temporary total disability, the failure to advance permanent disability a year after the Agreed Medical Examiner's findings are undisputed to a person who's getting $500.00 a month from Social Security.
She's offended that the TPA lets the defense attorneys handle the files, lets cases linger until a pinky finger from 2008 ends up turning into hand, arm, neck, back, internal, sleep, psyche, etc., etc. - on a case that was really ready to settle no less than 4 years ago.
She asks, "Why would these cases still be open (excluding those with obvious complex if not catastrophic issues) when the file reflects many opportunities for settlement that slipped away?"
Of...
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Sunday, January 12, 2014

With N.F.L. Concussion Deal, Two Tiers of Payouts

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

Court settlements are by nature compromises, and compromises are often messy. The proposed settlement of the lawsuits brought by more than 4,500 former N.F.L. players who contended that the league hid from them the dangers of concussions is no exception.
The N.F.L. agreed last summer to pay $765 million for medical monitoring and potential payments to those with significant illnesses, but it wanted all 18,000 or so retired players, not just those who sued, to be included in the deal.
By expanding the number of players who could benefit, the N.F.L. would help more former players. But anyone who agrees to the settlement will give up the right to sue the league, so the N.F.L. would also largely inoculate itself from further costly and embarrassing suits.
Yet one of the consequences of this structure is that it creates two tiers of retired players: those who sued the league and must pay their lawyers a percentage of any cash awards, and those who never sued the league but are eligible to receive money without paying legal fees. In effect, the players who took the initiative to sue and helped push the league to settle will be penalized. That structure irks some retired players, like Frank Sutton, who played one season as a Giants tackle.
“I believe in equity, and I believe in being involved in something and being held to...
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Thursday, November 21, 2013

South Lanarkshire Council asbestos ruling 'ends uncertainty'

The complexity of assessing liability in a latent occupational disease claim, Such as asbestos related disease, is challenging. Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from m.bbc.co.uk


A council has been held liable over the death of a man it never employed in a ruling which lawyers say removes a "black hole" around asbestos claims.
David Bavaird died in 2008 - 12 years after South Lanarkshire Council assumed the liabilities of his ex-employer, the East Kilbride Development Corporation.
The council's case that it was not liable as he was not ill in 1996 was rejected at the Court of Session.
His family's lawyers said defeat may have meant other claims failed too.
The court heard that Mr Bavaird was exposed to asbestos during his employment with the corporation in the 1960s.
Liability transfer
The corporation was wound up in 1996 and its legal liabilities were transferred to South Lanarkshire Council.
Mr Bavaird, who was from East Kilbride, died of the asbestos-related lung disease, mesothelioma, in 2008.
His family subsequently raised an action against the council and other bodies.
This was a highly complex case, as was reflected by Lord Brailsford's earlier ruling that the council could not be held liable

Paul Manning, South Lanarkshire Council

A previous ruling at the outer house of the Court of Session in October last year upheld the council's case that it was not liable.
This ruling has now been overturned by the inner house judges, Lady Paton sitting with Lord Drummond Young and Lord Marnoch.
Following the ruling, Laura Blane, from Thompsons Solicitors, who represented Mr Bavaird's family, said: "Had the Court of Session not...
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Monday, November 4, 2013

The End of the Class-Action Carnival

The End of the Class-Action Carnival
Class actions have been a major vehicle to creating safer workplace in the past. It is imperative that the people have their day in court to maintain a democratically balanced system of  government. Today's post article is shared from businessweek.com.

F. Paul Bland Jr. brings class-action lawsuits for a living. Over the years he’s represented groups of plaintiffs in suits against payday lender Check ’n Go and financial institution Wachovia.

He’s worried about business drying up. As a result of hostile Supreme Court rulings over the last several years, scores of mass consumer and employment suits that would have been viable a decade ago have been dismissed, says Bland, a senior attorney with Public Justice, a nonprofit in Washington.

“People bring me cases against cable companies or big employers, and I say, ‘Forget it. It’s impossible. Not even worth trying.’ ”

The mass lawsuit—in which hundreds or even thousands of plaintiffs join together to go after a corporate defendant—is in deep trouble. Growing judicial skepticism toward such suits and toward the lucrative settlements they generate has caused plaintiffs’ attorneys to shy away from accepting lengthy, complicated cases.

That’s tilting the legal playing field decisively in favor of Big Business—and as the Supreme Court reconvened on Oct. 7 for its 2013-14 term, trial lawyers are bracing for more setbacks.
Not everyone is shedding tears. Walter Olson, a legal expert at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, attributes the decline of mass lawsuits to a predictable—and...

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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Ronald Motley's Legacy Continues

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from www.asbestosdiseaseawareness.org


Earlier this year, Ronald Motley, a South Carolina lawyer, who spearheaded lawsuits against big tobacco and asbestos industries passed away at the age of 68. Mr. Motley was a one-of-a-kind attorney and tireless advocate who, for so many decades, made such a huge difference in the lives of asbestos victims and their families. Today, his legacy proves to continue to have a lasting impact.
Today, on what would have been Motley Rice LLC co-founder Ronald Motley’s 69th birthday, it was announced that the firm placed on The National Law Journal’s 2013 Plaintiff’s Hot List.
ADAO will continue to honor Mr. Motley’s legacy and his firm’s commitment to truth and justice as we continue our work to help asbestos victims in the United States, Canada, and the world.
Together, change is possible.
Linda Reinstein
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Monday, October 21, 2013

Computer woes plague Pa. worker comp system

Today's post was shared from philly.com.

New software was designed to modernize the process of filing claims. Instead, the opposite has happened, according to interviews with attorneys, judges and others who use the system.

The glitches range from being unable to upload claims or other supporting legal documents into the system to having court paperwork disappear.

The result: Injured workers and their lawyers have been unable to get hearings, creating a backlog of cases at the Labor and Industry Department's Bureau of Workers' Compensation.

Attorneys for workers, employers and insurance companies are, in some cases, not getting notified of decisions in their cases. And judges and their staff have even been unable to upload critical documents into the system.

"The intent was good, but the delivery has failed," said Philadelphia attorney Leonard A. Cohen, who represents injured workers and who is on a steering committee working with the state to oversee the implementation of the system. "We are all in favor of hanging in here. But in the meantime, the [new software] is causing the system to almost come to a halt."

The new system, designed by New York-based Deloitte Consulting LLC, went live on September 9 and the problems started immediately.

Cohen said he has filed 20 petitions on behalf of clients seeking workers' compensation since early September, and not one has been assigned to a...


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Flavorings and Fragrances: A Newly Engineered Problem in the Workplace

Flavorings and fragrances have ben a perennial problem in the workplace. They have created and contributed to occupational exposures and diseases. Some exposure have led to civil lawsuits, beyond workers' compensation claims. Today's post is shared from nytimes.org

Vanilla, saffron, patchouli. For centuries, spices and flavorings like these have come from exotic plants growing in remote places like the jungles of Mexico or the terraced hillsides of Madagascar. Some were highly prized along ancient trading routes like the Silk Road.

Now a powerful form of genetic engineering could revolutionize the production of some of the most sought-after flavors and fragrances. Rather than being extracted from plants, they are being made by genetically modified yeast or other micro-organisms cultured in huge industrial vats.

“It’s just like brewing beer, but rather than spit out alcohol, the yeast spits out these products,” said Jay D. Keasling, a co-founder of Amyris, a company based here that is a pioneer in the field. However, while yeast makes alcohol naturally, it would not produce the spices without the extensive genetic rejiggering, which is called synthetic biology.

The advent of synthetic biology raises thorny economic and regulatory issues, such as whether such yeast-made ingredients can be called natural and whether developing countries dependent on these crops will be hurt.

Supporters say the technique could benefit food and cosmetic companies, and...
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Monday, October 14, 2013

U.S. asbestos imports condemned by health experts, activists

Today's post was shared by Linda Reinstein and comes from www.publicintegrity.org


More than 50 countries have banned asbestos, a toxic mineral used in building materials, insulation, automobile brakes and other products.

The United States isn’t one of them. Last year, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, 1,060 metric tons — more than 2.3 million pounds — came into the country, all of it from Brazil. “Based on current trends,” the USGS says, “U.S. asbestos consumption is likely to remain near the 1,000-ton level …”

Public health experts and anti-asbestos activists find this distressing.
Linda Reinstein, who lost her husband to mesothelioma, an especially virulent form of cancer tied to asbestos exposure, said she’s “appalled and disgusted that the United States still allows the importation of asbestos to meet so-called manufacturing needs.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

NJ Workers' Compensation Maximum Rate Rising in 2014

The maximum NJ Workers' Compensation is proposed to rise to $843.00 per week in 2014.  The rate is based upon the State's Average Weekly Wage (SAWW). The rate applies to temporary disability, permanent disability, permanent total, permanent partial total, and dependency benefits.
The rate for 2013 is $826.00.

NJAC 12:235-1.6 (September 3, 2013)
2013 NJ REG TEXT 335666

Wednesday, September 25, 2013

Chart of the Day: Hands-Free Talking Is as Bad as Talking on a Handset. Maybe Even Worse.

Distracted driving doesn't get better by the use of hands free technology. Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com


Michael O'Hare points us this morning to a study of cell phone usage in cars that confirms the obvious: it's dangerous. More dangerous than driving drunk, in fact. What's more, as the chart on the right shows, hands-free talking doesn't help. In fact, for certain
tasks it makes things even worse. O'Hare explains what's going on:
To understand the reason, consider driving while (i) listening to the radio as I was (ii) conversing with an adult passenger (iii) transporting a four-year-old (iv) sharing the front seat with a largish dog.
Why are the first two not dangerous, and the last two make you tense up just thinking about them? 
The radio is not a person, and you subconsciously know that you may miss something if you attend to something in the road ahead, but also that you won’t insult it if you “listen away”, and it won’t suffer, much less indicate unease. The adult passenger can see out the windshield and also catch very subtle changes in your tone of voice or body language. 
If you stop talking to attend to the car braking up ahead, the passenger knows why instantly, and accommodates, and because you know this, you aren’t anxious about interrupting the conversation. The dog and the child, in contrast, are completely unaware of what’s coming up on the road or what you need to pay attention to; the former is happy to jump in your lap if it seems like a good idea at any moment, and the child demands attention on her own schedule and at...
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Monday, September 16, 2013

Tips and Poverty

In the calcuation of wages and rates of benefits, most state workers' compensation programs incoporate tips. Elimination of tips, would eliminated added coverage benefits paid under workers' compensation programs.Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com


When The Times’s restaurant critic, Pete Wells, recently called tipping “irrational, outdated, ineffective, confusing, prone to abuse and sometimes discriminatory,” he was referring mainly to mid- to high-priced restaurants that are considering an end to the practice in favor of surcharges or service-included pricing.

In the diners and other more “value oriented” restaurants that employ most of the nation’s burgeoning ranks of waitresses (the vast majority of servers are female), tips are all that and more. They are part of a parallel economic universe in which employers are allowed to pay sub-minimum wages, with predictably devastating results. According to census data, servers are far more likely than other workers to live in poverty.

It is a national disgrace when hard work, in any industry, leaves workers in poverty. But falling living standards and economic hardship among tipped workers signal prolonged stagnation throughout the economy. That’s because employment growth in restaurants and bars has outpaced growth in nearly all other sectors in recent years, including health care, manufacturing, retail and financial services. 

If wages in food-service and other service jobs are not lifted, it is hard to see where adequate consumer demand will come from to generate and sustain a real recovery.

It is not tipping that most needs to end, however. What needs to change is the federal law that sets the minimum wage for tipped workers...
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

What to Do About Futile Critical Care

The last year of an injured worker's life is probably the most expensive for medical costs. Usually such expenses account for 50% of lifetime care costs. Associated with a work-related claim  researchers are struggling how to limit unnecessary costs and maintain ethical and moral responsibilities. Today's post was shared by The Health Care Blog and comes from thehealthcareblog.com

By Neil S. Wenger, MD


Thanks to extraordinary advances in medicine, critical care providers can save lives even when the cards are stacked against their patients. However, there are times when no amount of care, however cutting-edge it is, will save a patient. In these instances, when physicians recognize that patients will not be rescued, further critical care is said to be “futile.” In a new study, my RAND and UCLA colleagues and I find that critical care therapies that physicians regard as “futile” are not uncommon in intensive care units, raising some uncomfortable questions.


Of course, we’re fortunate to have such fantastic technology at our disposal — but we must address how to use it appropriately when the patient may not benefit from high-intensity measures. When aggressive critical care is unsuccessful at achieving an acceptable level of health for the patient, treatment should focus on palliative care.

In our study, my colleagues and I quantified the prevalence and cost of “futile” critical care in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. This can be seen as the first step toward reevaluating the status quo and better optimizing care for critical care patients.

After convening a group of critical care clinicians to determine a consensus definition of “futile treatment,” our research team analyzed nearly 7,000 daily assessments of more than 1,000 patients.
We found that 11 percent received futile...
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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman  1.973.696.7900  jon@gelmans.com  have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

EpiPens for All

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.nytimes.com


AMARRIA JOHNSON, who attended first grade at Hopkins Elementary School in Richmond, Va., was an outgoing and energetic girl who loved animals, singing and telling jokes. She won reading and citizenship awards and planned to become a teacher. She also was allergic to peanuts.

On Jan. 2, 2012, a classmate gave Amarria a peanut on the playground. Despite her allergy, Amarria ate the nut and soon had trouble breathing. She sought out a teacher, but at the school health clinic, there was no epinephrine auto-injector prescribed for Amarria. Epinephrine auto-injectors, the most well known of which are EpiPens, contain adrenaline and are the first line of emergency treatment for anaphylaxis, an extremely severe allergic reaction that can become fatal within minutes.

At the time, employees in Amarria’s public school were not allowed to use epinephrine prescribed for one student on a different child; instead, the school called an ambulance, which transported Amarria to a hospital, where she was pronounced dead of anaphylaxis and cardiac arrest.

I’m the mother of a child with food allergies, and stories like Amarria’s are my worst nightmare. In describing her tragedy, I question the fairness of reducing a 7-year-old girl to a symbol. Nevertheless I repeat the circumstances of Amarria’s death because it appears they directly affected legislation in her state.

Just a few months after she died, “Amarria’s Law” was in place; the law requires...
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