Uncertainty Over Whether N.F.L. Settlement’s Money Will Last

As intriguing football matchups go, Sunday’s Super Bowl has nothing on one looming down the turnpike in federal court in Philadelphia — with Judge Anita B. Brody the ultimate referee.

Brody, considering the N.F.L.'s recent settlement with 4,500 retirees over work-related brain injuries, has asked both sides to demonstrate that their $765 million bargain will fulfill its promise to compensate every currently retired player who has or will develop a neurological condition such as dementia or Parkinson’s disease.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs and the N.F.L. said independent actuaries and medical experts had endorsed the terms of the settlement. But the lawyers refuse to share any of their data with the public to help substantiate how they arrived at the $765 million figure, and there is growing displeasure among plaintiffs who have not been allowed to see the data, either.

Numbers can speak for themselves, though, and they bring a clear warning: The $765 million could run out faster than either side apparently believes. When one forecasts how many of the roughly 13,500 currently retired players may develop these conditions over the next 65 years, compensating them as the settlement directs could very well require close to $1 billion, and perhaps more.

No one can divine how many players will develop these conditions. But the best data available comes straight from the N.F.L., and it becomes instructive after some basic guidelines.

The settlement essentially...

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Harness driver from Jersey City critically injured in racetrack accident

Harness race drivers are subject to workers' compensation coverage in NJ. Today's post is shared from philly.com Members of the harness racing industry across the country are rallying to support a harness driver from Jersey City, who was critically injured at a Philadelphia racetrack  on Nov. 17. Anthony Coletta, 31, was critically injured after he was trampled by a horse during a  four-horse accident at Harrah’s Philadelphia racetrack in Chester, Penn., according to Harnesslink.com. Philly.com reported the accident occurred during the night's 11th race just short of two minutes into it. The accident was recorded on video, and, according to Philly.com,  it shows one horse appearing to stumble to the ground as a second horse rams it from behind, causing Coletta to flip several feet into the air and onto the track, as a horse comes up behind him. Other horses collided. Coletta was taken to a local medical facility and then flow by Medivac helicopter to the Hospital at the University of Pennsylvania where he underwent surgery for brain trauma and multiple fractures, reported Harnesslink.com. It was reported as of the next morning Coletta was breathing on his own, the website reported. Horsemen throughout the country have been organizing fundraising events and others are donating portions of their winnings to help pay for Coletta’s hospital expenses, it was reported. The efforts are all being coordinated by one of Coletta’s best...

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What Does Cancer Smell Like?

Nanotechnology is giving rise to concern for the safety of workers. The lack of regulation, statutes, Iand safety precautions result in deciduous and latent exposures. Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

On a lab bench in Philadelphia sits a tiny box lined with nearly invisible nanotubes and gold. A clear plastic pipe runs through it, and a thicket of pins, each sprouting a red or blue wire, protrudes from its end. As air from the pipe wafts over the nanotubes, electrical signals surge out of the box along the wire threads. The whole apparatus is situated near a vial of blood, “sniffing” the air above it through the pipe. The box, an electronic nose, is a key part of a theory being explored by George Preti, an organic chemist at the Monell Chemical Senses Center, and an interdisciplinary team that includes physicists and veterinarians at the University of Pennsylvania. Preti is an expert on human odors, having studied them for more than 40 years. He has sniffed — both with machines and with his nose — breath, sweat and other secretions in search of answers about why we smell the way we do. This latest project seeks to answer a question others might have never thought to ask: Does ovarian cancer have a smell? In modern cancer medicine, doctors tend to rely on advanced imaging techniques and the detection of lumps. The widely acknowledged problem with these methods, though, is that by the time doctors have reason to order a scan or feel something, it’s often too late. Ovarian cancer has usually spread to other organs by the time it’s detected. If it is caught early — which happens only 15 percent of the time, often by accident when...

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Lawyer recalls first meeting with woman who started Risperdal litigation

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

Brian McCormick remembers meeting Victoria Starr back in 2007 when he first started working for Sheller P.C. The Oregon woman had approached the Philadelphia law firm about three years prior about filing a qui tam lawsuit on behalf of the U.S. government against the makers of the antipsychotic drug Risperdal.” Add caption Starr, a former sales representative for Janssen Pharmaceutica, a wholly-owned subsidiary of drugmaker Johnson & Johnson, felt as if she was being encouraged and pressured to market Risperdal off-label. McCormick’s law firm filed Starr’s qui tam suit in April 2004, three months after the woman quit her job. She had begun working for Janssen in about 2001. On Monday, Johnson & Johnson announced that it would be paying more than $2.2 billion to resolve civil and criminal claims relating to allegations that the company marketed Risperdal, a drug primarily designed to treat bi-polar disorder and schizophrenia, for uses other than those approved by the Food and Drug Administration. The pharmaceutical manufacturer will pay $1.673 billion to resolve the allegations of off-label marketing for Risperdal and sister drug Invega, the resolution marking the largest involving a single drug in U.S. history, and the third-largest healthcare fraud settlement involving one company, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. The massive settlement that resulted from a...

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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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Use Only as Directed

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.propublica.org

During the last decade, more than 1,500 Americans dieda fter accidentally taking too much of a drug renowned for its safety:acetaminophen, one of the nation’s most popular pain relievers. Acetaminophen – the active ingredient in Tylenol– is considered safe when taken at recommended doses. Tens of millions of people use it weekly with no ill effect. But in larger amounts, especially in combination with alcohol, the drug can damage or even destroy the liver. Davy Baumle, a slender 12-year-oldwho loved to ride his dirt bike through the woods of southern Illinois, died from acetaminophen poisoning. So did tiny five-month-old Brianna Hutto. So did Marcus Trunk, a strapping 23-year-old construction worker from Philadelphia. The toll does not have to be so high. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has long been aware of studies showing the risks of acetaminophen – in particular, that the margin between the amount that helps and the amount that can cause serious harmis smaller than for other pain relievers. So, too, has McNeil Consumer Healthcare, the unit of Johnson & Johnson that has built Tylenol into a billion-dollar brand and the leader in acetaminophen sales. Yet federal regulators have delayed or failed to adopt measures designed to reduce deaths and injuries from acetaminophen overdose,which the agency calls a “persistent, important public health problem.” The FDA has repeatedly deferred decisions on consumer protection seven when they were...

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Ex-NFL Player Loses Workers' Comp Appeal Against Steelers

Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.law360.com

A former defensive end with the Pittsburgh Steelers football team lost his bid for workers’ compensation Thursday after the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court found that a 2004 injury that ended his season did not result in a loss of earnings despite his never playing professionally again. A three-judge panel agreed that testimony from a pair of orthopedic surgeons who treated Ainsley Battles after a season-ending hamstring tear in 2004 proved that the player sufficiently recovered from the injury to continue pursuing his football career prior to his ultimate retirement in 2006. “Both doctors agreed that claimant’s injury would not prevent him from playing professional football, and neither doctor suggested that claimant’s injury caused a loss in earning power after he completed his rehabilitation,” the court ruled in a decision penned by Judge Mary Hannah Leavitt. Battles had asked the Commonwealth Court to overturn a decision by the Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board which found that the Steelers had no duty to pay the player for disability following the injury. Battles, who previously played for the Jacksonville Jaguars and the Buffalo Bills before signing a one-year contract with the Steelers, tore his hamstring in his first game with the team in September 2004. According to court records, Battles was cleared to...

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