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(c) 2010-2024 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.
Showing posts with label Reuters. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Reuters. Show all posts

Monday, February 10, 2020

Order Now: Workers' Compensation Law 2020 Update

Jon Gelman’s* newly revised and updated treatise on Workers’ Compensation Law has been published by West Group of Egan, MN. The treatise is the most complete and research integrated work available on NJ Workers’ Compensation law.

Tuesday, February 18, 2014

Just Published: 2014 Update - Gelman on Workers' Compensation Law

Jon Gelman’s newly revised and updated treatise on Workers’ Compensation Law has just been published by West Group of Egan, MN. The treatise is the most complete work available on NJ Workers’ Compensation law.

The work offers an in-depth and insightful analysis that provides a  quick and accurate guidance to those who practice workplace injury law. Time-saving comments and instructions shorten the claims process and expedite handling of issues.

New areas of the law reviewed:

The newly enacted SMART Act (The Strengthening Medicare and Repaying Taxpayers Act of 2012), and the proposed Regulations, are discussed at length in this supplement. The newly enacted statutory provision concerning balance billing and expanded jurisdiction of the Workers’ Compensation Court is reviewed. The launch of COURTS 4, the expanded workers’ compensation electronic filing system, implementing e-filing of Notice of Motions, is explained along with accompanying sample forms, codes, and instructions for filing/service. The statutory extension of lifetime benefits embodied in recent legislation for surviving spouses of police and fire department employees, who are fatally injured in-the-line of duty, is discussed. The recent case law concerning the second-prong of the “context test” involving the “Exclusivity Doctrine” is reviewed 

New 2014 Section Sections include:

--Dependency—Surviving spouse of police or fire department killed in the line of duty [12.14.50] 
--Case organization utilization reporting tracking system (COURTS)—Court proceeding type codes [25.22.30] 
--Case organization utilization reporting tracking system (COURTS)—E-filing of motions—General motion [25.22.40] 

Gelman on Workers’Compensation Law is exclusively integrated into the entire world-wide leading legal research network of West Group-Reuters-Thomson publications.

It is now available, in print, on CD-Rom and online via Westlaw™ and WestlawNext™. [Westlaw Database Identifier NJPRAC]



Jon L. Gelman is nationally recognized as an author, lecturer and skilled trial attorney in the field of workers’ compensation law and occupational/environmental disease litigation. Over a career spanning more than three decades he has been involved in complex litigation involving thousands of clients challenging the mega-industries of: asbestos, tobacco and lead paint. Gelman is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). He is the former Vice-President of  The Workers Injury Law & Advocacy Group (WILG) and a charter member of The College of Workers' Compensation Lawyers. Jon is a founder of the Nancy R. Gelman Foundation Inc., which seeks to fund innovative research to cure breast cancer. He is also an avid photographer. jon@gelmans.com -www.gelmans.com

Thursday, January 16, 2014

Fire at Chinese shoe factory kills 16: Xinhua

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.reuters.com

BEIJING (Reuters) - A fire at a shoe factory in eastern China killed 16 people and injured five, state media reported, the latest disaster to highlight China's poor workplace safety record.

The fire broke out at the factory in Wenling in the wealthy coastal province of Zhejiang on Tuesday, the official Xinhua news agency said.

More than 20 people were rescued and the injured were all in stable condition in hospital, it said. The cause of the fire was being investigated.

China, the world's second-largest economy, has a bad record on workplace safety. Fire exits in factories, office buildings and shops are often locked to prevent workers taking time off or stealing, or even blocked completely.

A fire at a poultry slaughterhouse in the northeastern province of Jilin in June 2013 killed 120 people. That blaze was blamed on poor management, lack of government oversight and locked or blocked exits.

Many industrial accidents happen in the huge coal mining industry, in which hundreds die every year from explosions, mine collapses and floods.

(Reporting by Ben Blanchard; Editing by Paul Tait)

Thursday, December 12, 2013

Merck agrees to proposed $27.7 mln settlement over Fosamax lawsuits

Many injured workers have been prescribed Fosamax for treatment of their conditions. Today's post was shared by FairWarning and comes from www.reuters.com

By Nate Raymond and Jessica Dye
NEW YORK Dec 9 (Reuters) - Merck & Co Inc said on Monday that it was prepared to pay $27.7 million to settle lawsuits by hundreds of people who sued the company over allegations that its osteoporosis drug Fosamax caused bones in the jaw to deteriorate.
Lawyers for Merck and plaintiffs disclosed the proposed settlement at a court hearing in New York to resolve 1,140 lawsuits pending in federal and state courts. Any settlement would need to be approved by a judge.
Merck, which confirmed the agreement later on Monday, said the accord requires a 100 percent participation rate and evidence that the claimants satisfy eligibility requirements. The deal covers about 1,200 people, the company said.
"We hope to bring this to a successful conclusion," Paul Strain, a lawyer for Merck, said at the hearing in U.S. District Court in Manhattan before Judge John Keenan, who has presided over federal litigation by plaintiffs claiming that they developed osteonecrosis of the jaw from taking Fosamax.
The condition is a disease that causes bones in the jaw to deteriorate or die.
The settlement would resolve a large portion of the 5,255 product liability cases facing Merck over Fosamax, a one-time blockbuster drug with $3 billion in sales in 2007.
Sales have declined since Fosamax lost patent protection in 2008. Through September, Merck had reported $421 million in Fosamax sales in 2013.
Of the lawsuits over Fosamax, about 860 of the cases were before...
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Friday, November 29, 2013

Arson blamed for huge Bangladesh garment factory fire

It is feared that thousands of people could lose their jobs as a result of the blaze
Arson is being blamed for a huge fire at a garment factory in Bangladesh which makes clothes for Western brands, fire and police authorities say.
The fire gutted a 10-storey building at Gazipur, 40km (25 miles) from Dhaka.
Firemen are battling to extinguish flames in four adjacent buildings.
Smoke rises from the fire at the Standard Group garment factory in GazipurPolice say that the fire follows protests by garment workers to demand higher wages and better conditions. A garment factory collapse in April killed more than 1,100 people.
No-one was reported injured in Friday's fire.
The fire inside the Standard Group garment factory warehouse is believed to have caused million of dollars worth of damage The blaze also destroyed numerous trucks carrying garments for export, officials say A large consignment of clothes for export abroad was damaged in the fire
A Reuters photographer at the Standard Group garment factory said that burnt garments were strewn at the scene bearing brand names from US and other international retailers.
Officials say that the factory was one of the biggest in the country and as many as 18,000 people worked there.
At least 15 trucks carrying garments were also reported to have been set on fire.
"We think it's an act of arson committed by workers from both inside the factory complex and outside," Mosharraf Hossain, a senior officer...
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Thursday, November 21, 2013

California Chemical Plant Leaking Sulfuric Acid Sickens 70

A sulphuric acid leak at the Solvay chemical plant in California earlier this week has made about 70 people ill, Reuters reports.
A malfunctioning scrubber machine at the Carson, Calif., chemical company caused the leak, according to Los Angeles County Fire Department official Phil Ulloa. Ulloa told Reuters 13 people in the Carson area were treated at hospitals after complaining of nose and throat irritation and vomiting. All 13 were later released.
Reuters says it was not immediately clear if there were any workers at the Solvay plant when the leak occurred.
Last month, the US Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration launched two new web resources that aim to safeguard workers from exposure to hazardous chemicals in response to its own out-of-date standards. The government agency’s exposure standards, which were developed in the 1970s, are out-of-date and inadequately protective for the small number of chemicals that are regulated in the workplace, OSHA says.
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Friday, November 1, 2013

Canadian Pipeline Incidents Have Doubled In The Past Decade

Today's post was shared by Huffington Post and comes from www.huffingtonpost.com


Oct 28 (Reuters) - The rate of safety-related incidents on federally regulated pipelines in Canada doubled over the last decade, while the rate of reported spills and leaks was up threefold, according to an investigative report by Canada's national broadcaster.

The total number of incidents, which included everything from spills to fires, swelled from 45 in 2000 to 142 in 2011, the CBC reported on Monday, citing data from the National Energy Board (NEB) obtained through access-to-information requests.

That translated to a doubling from one incident for every 1,000 km (620 miles) of federally-regulated pipeline in 2000, to two in 2011.

The CBC investigation also found that the rate of product reported releases - spills and leaks - rose threefold, from four releases for every 10,000 km in 2000, to 13 in 2011.

The NEB regulates all pipelines that cross provincial or international borders, but does not monitor smaller pipelines that are only in a single province.

The safety of shipping petroleum products via pipelines has become a hot topic in recent years, with companies like Enbridge Inc and TransCanada Corp developing major new projects to move crude from Canada's oil sands to markets in the United States and Asia.

Opponents say a pipeline leak can cause catastrophic environmental damage and often cite a 2010 incident where an Enbridge pipeline carrying crude from Alberta ruptured, spilling huge amounts of oil into the Kalamazoo River in Michigan.

But pipeline companies say their...
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Friday, October 25, 2013

EPA Hits The Road To Seek Input On New Rules

Today's post was shared by Huffington Post and comes from www.huffingtonpost.com

epa carbon emissions
The U.S. states that already have a plan in place to cut carbon pollution from power plants are likely to make the case to regulators this week that their program offers a viable model for others to follow.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday kicks off an 11-city "listening tour" as part of its effort to craft emissions rules for existing power plants. The tour starts in New York and Atlanta. Meetings will then be held from Boston to Seattle, wrapping up on Nov. 8.

The agency is expected to solicit ideas on how best to regulate carbon emissions from the more than 1,000 power plants now in operation - the cornerstone and arguably the most controversial part of the Obama administration's strategy to address climate change.

The EPA will use a rarely employed section of the federal Clean Air Act, known as section 111(d), and will rely heavily on input from states to craft a flexible rule that can be applied to states with different energy profiles.

President Barack Obama set a June 2014 deadline for the agency to propose its rules, which need to be finalized in June 2015.

Officials from some of the nine northeastern states in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) - a carbon trading program targeting power sector emissions - will attend some of the sessions and make the case that the initiative has a "plug and play" option for states to meet future federal...
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Tuesday, October 22, 2013

McDonald's Profit Is Awkwardly Close To What It Costs Taxpayers Every Year

Low wages impact benefits, create more income for the employer and cost taxpayers. Shifting the costs. Today's post was shared by Huffington Post and comes from www.huffingtonpost.com

McDonald's announced Monday that it raked in $1.5 billion in profits in the third quarter, up 5 percent from last year.
The number is strikingly close to the $1.2 billion taxpayers are shelling out each year to help pay public assistance to the McDonald's workforce, according to a report released last week by the National Employment Law Project.
chartThe echoing numbers are simply a coincidence, but underscore the immense profits that the chain continues to pull in while its workers simply struggle to afford food, medical help and housing. The public assistance McDonald's workers receive comes via food stamps, welfare, Medicaid and other federal programs, according to the NELP report.
In a statement to The Huffington Post, McDonald's emphasized that workers get training and the opportunity for career advancement. The company also said that its franchisees pay competitive wages that are based on "local wage laws."
Those wages are stunningly low. Frontline fast-food workers make a median wage of $8.94 an hour, according to a recent Reuters report. "Fast-food workers work only 24 hours a week on average — at $8.94 an hour, this adds up to barely $11,000 a year," wrote Christine Owens for Reuters in August.
With wages that low, front-line fast food workers are more than twice as likely as the typical worker to participate in a government assistance program, according to the NELP report:
The National Restaurant Association, an industry trade group, last week labeled the NELP report...
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Friday, September 27, 2013

The Impact and Echoes of the Wal-Mart Discrimination Case

This article is shared from propublica.

The post is shared from probulica.org.

Betty Dukes talks to the press on the steps of the U.S. Supreme Court after the class action lawsuit Dukes v. Wal-Mart was argued before the court in Washington, March 29, 2011
(Photo: Reuters)
When the U.S. Supreme Court issued its 5-4 decision in Wal-Mart v. Dukes in June 2011, no one needed a Richter scale to know it was a Big One. In throwing out a mammoth lawsuit by women employees who claimed that they’d been systematically underpaid and underpromoted by the world’s biggest corporation, the ruling upended decades of employment discrimination law and raised serious barriers to future large-scale discrimination cases of every kind.

Employers rejoiced. Others predicted serious setbacks for women and minorities, especially in employment discrimination cases brought under Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. That landmark law had opened the way to the use of the class-action lawsuit as a potent weapon for people who could not stand up for their rights on their own.
Two years later, it’s becoming clear just how much the ruling has reshaped the American legal landscape.

The Dukes decision has already been cited more than 1,200 times in rulings by federal and state courts, a figure seen by experts as remarkable. Jury verdicts have been overturned, settlements thrown out, and class actions rejected or decertified, in many instances undoing years of litigation. The rulings have come in every part of the country, in lawsuits involving all types of companies,...
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United Airlines flight lands safely after pilot suffers heart attack

Safety in the air is of great concern.What is lacking is adequate access to medical care and resources on an urgent basis. This article is shared from Reuters.

A United Airlines flight bound for Seattle with 165 people on board made an emergency landing at Boise Airport on Thursday evening after the pilot suffered a heart attack, an airport spokeswoman said.
The Boeing 737 landed safely shortly after 8 p.m. local time and the pilot was rushed to a local hospital, where his condition was unknown, Boise Airport spokeswoman Patty Miller said.
"We got a call from United flight 1607 at about 7:55 p.m. Mountain Time declaring an emergency, they said the pilot had had a heart attack," Miller said, adding that the plane landed at 8:08 p.m.
Click here to read the complete article.
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Tuesday, February 14, 2012

Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning in France

Consistent with an enforcement trend by the EU to reduce agricultural pesticides used by 50% between 2008-2018,  a  French court on Monday declared U.S. biotech giant Monsanto guilty of chemical poisoning of a French farmer, a judgment that could lend weight to other health claims against pesticides.


See: Thomson Reuters News & Insight
"It is a historic decision in so far as it is the first time that a (pesticide) maker is found guilty of such a poisoning," François Lafforgue, Francois's lawyer, told Reuters.