Set-Asides Without Safe Harbor

In May 2013, this blog reported that a New Jersey court had done what the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) declined to do. In Duhamell v. Renal Care Group East, Inc., 431 N.J. Super. 93 (Law Div. 2012), the Superior Court in Atlantic County approved two self-administered Medicare set-asides after CMS refused to review them, citing limited resources. Thirteen years later, CMS still will not grant a safe harbor outside its own review process, but it now sees nearly every set-aside that gets created. For injured workers in New Jersey, that shift changes the calculus of every lump-sum settlement.

El Niño Sends the Bill

How a record-strength El Niño will test the workers' compensation market, and the claims that will follow.

Credibility Wins, Silence Forfeits

Lawhon v. County of Monmouth shows why a judge’s credibility findings stick and why unraised issues vanish on appeal.

Coverage Gaps Become Compensation Claims

Medicaid cuts, lapsed subsidies and Medicare Advantage exits will push more medical costs into workers' compensation.

The Next Plague Clocks In

A Siberian lab technician’s death tests whether U.S. workers’ compensation is ready for the next outbreak.

Not Fired by a Robot

NJ AFL-CIO Puts Its Weight Behind S4075, the FAIR Act, and Injured Workers Should Pay Attention

A Dozen Years, No Hike

New Jersey’s proposed 2027 rate filing would extend the state’s run of workers’ compensation rate reductions to a twelfth straight year, even as the annual cut continues to shrink.

Two Endorsements, Two Traps

NJCRIB adopts NAFIA and OFAC sanctions endorsements for 2027, reshaping where claims are filed and paid.

The Fire That Built Comp

How a one-day gap in March 1911 split the old balance of power from the one that gives injured workers their claim today, and what the fight over that balance means for workers' compensation practice going forward.

No Shoulder to Lean On

Appellate Division bars LAD plaintiff from suing for a workers' compensation-paid shoulder injury after a retaliatory firing.

The Ban Arrives Late

Cal/OSHA has released draft regulatory text that would prohibit the manufacture and fabrication of artificial stone containing more than 1 percent crystalline silica. The product may disappear from California shops. The workers’ compensation claims will not.

Your Body Becomes Evidence

New Jersey's S4075 would regulate AI workplace surveillance and quietly reshape proof in every workers ' compensation claim.

The Dust Never Settled

New York City's newly released 9/11 records show that asbestos lingered in Lower Manhattan for months while officials weighed their own liability. Twenty-five years later, the latency clock for asbestos-related cancer is only now reaching its peak. 

Court Upholds NJ's ICE Firewall

A federal judge in Newark ordered the Trump Justice Department, for at least the fourth time this year, to let a state decide who walks through the nonpublic doors of its own buildings. On September 4, 2026, U.S. District Judge Georgette Castner dismissed the United States' lawsuit against Governor Mikie Sherrill and the State of New Jersey over Executive Order 12 — the directive barring state executive-branch agencies from letting federal immigration officers into nonpublic areas of state property, or using that property as a staging ground, without a judicial warrant. United States v. New Jersey, No. 26-1770 (D.N.J. Sept. 4, 2026).

Workers’ Compensation Liens Race the Clock

The Southern District of New York recognizes the Quebec bar date for asbestos claims against Asbestos Corporation Limited. Workers' compensation carriers, self-insured employers, and lienholders have until September 10, 2026, to protect subrogation rights caught in the automatic stay.

Your Brain Clocks In

Neural monitoring at work, the data employers are quietly accumulating, and what it will do to compensation claims.

The Bond Market Adjusts Claims

Record federal borrowing and a 5.2 percent long bond are quietly repricing reserves, settlements, and self-insurance security.

Higher Ceiling, Frozen Floor

New Jersey has posted its 2027 workers’ compensation benefit rates.

John Burton's Unfinished Blueprint

The economist who chaired the Nixon Commission set a standard the states still have not met.

Twin Shields Bar COVID Claim

A leased laundry aide died of COVID-19 contracted during a nursing home outbreak. His estate collected a workers’ compensation award, and that was the end of the line. On August 14, 2026, the Appellate Division affirmed dismissal of the family’s tort suit under two independent shields: pandemic immunity and the exclusive remedy provision of the Workers’ Compensation Act.