Injured plant worker is awarded $28 million

Today's post was shared by votersinjuredatwork and comes from www.kansascity.com

A plant worker in Lebanon, Mo., has been awarded $28 million after a jury found an air conditioner compressor manufacturer responsible for causing a serious respiratory injury. The jury verdict, reached last week in Laclede County, Mo., requires Copeland Scroll Compressors LLC to pay Philip Berger $23 million in punitive damages and $5 million in actual damages. Berger was represented by the Independence law firm of Humphrey, Farrington & McClain. The worker contracted a lung inflammation after allegedly being exposed to mold, microbes and bacteria found in the fluids that the plant used to cool cutting tools and workplace surfaces, the law firm said. Copeland is owned by Emerson Climate Technologies of St. Louis County. Copeland’s lawyer, Joseph Orlet, said that the plant is a “very safe work environment” and that management follows safety standards. Emerson plans to appeal.

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Where Have All The Lawyers Gone?

No where is it more evident than in workers' compensation law, that the lawyers and their practices to assist injured workers, are disappearing. Workers are finding it difficult to obtain legal representation.

Many factors are causing this phenomenon. The principle reasons why the practice of

workers compensation law are shrinking are legal, social and economic.

Those factors include: a shrinking employment base, the loss of a manufacturing sector, and continued Industry "reform" efforts to bar injured workers from accessing the compensation system.

Additionally, as the practice of workplace law keeps drying up, disillusioned new lawyers are abandoning the practice of law at ever increasing numbers. Established law firms are consolidating and closing as second generation lawyers seek other types of work far from the practice of workplace law.

David B. Wilkins, who directs a program on the legal profession at Harvard Law School, said, "'In the 1970s, lawyers spent about half their time serving individuals and half on corporations. By the 1990s, it was two-thirds for corporations. So there has been a skewing toward urban business practice and neglect of many other legal needs.'”

Read the complete article: "No Lawyer for Miles, So One Rural State Offers Pay" 

Read more about "lawyers" and "workers' compensation"

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Law Firm Prosperity California Style-Post Dewey & LeBoeuf

Guest Blog by

David Depaolo*


Across the nation the decline in work comp claims have caused scale back in law firms for both injured workers and carrier defense … except in California.

Applicant firms (as they are called in California) have not seen much if any attrition since 2004,when the Terminator reforms were instigated, and several have actually expanded taking up the slack of the less dedicated firms.

Defense firms have exploded with more and more defense attorneys being hired and more and more defense billable hours being charged since the prosperous 1980s.

The reason appears to be unsettled law just now coming to a point of stabilization and ancillary issues that have been generated as a consequence of regulatory changes - e.g. California's "lien laws" have created increased litigation as, in my opinion, short-sighted regulators implement strategies to treat the symptoms rather than the underlying disease.

The Dewey & LeBoeuf bankruptcy was a long time coming as the firm simply failed to curtail its spending and partner dividends when clients were pulling back in the face of the recession.

So I don't see Dewey & LeBoeuf  as really representative of lower work comp filing rates.

David DePaolo is CEO, President, Editor-in-Chief of WorkCompCentral. He holds a J.D. from Pepperdine University School of Law (1984), a Masters in Business Administration from California Lutheran University (1997) and a Bachelor of Arts, English, from San Diego State University (1981). Mr. DePaolo is a frequent lecturer and author his own blog, DePaolo's Work Comp World.