Today, President Biden signed the Executive order, Made in America.” The effort to move manufacturing jobs back to the United States will have a major impact going forward for the entire workers' compensation system. This initiative will expand the workforce and expand the potential of a major increase in workers' compensation benefits through increased wages/rates and premiums paid for coverage and all related cottage industries involved in the social insurance program.
Showing posts with label workers compensation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label workers compensation. Show all posts
Monday, January 25, 2021
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
Major increase in work-related deaths reported
The US Bureau of Labor Statistics has released the census of fatal occupational injuries in 2019. A major increase in work-related deaths has been reported over the prior year. The changing workplace and a major increase in deliveries were reflected in the report in that nearly one out of every five fatally injured workers was employed as a driver/sales worker or truck driver.
Thursday, July 23, 2020
Lessons from Asbestos Litigation Apply to COVID Claims
The rapid emergence of COVID-19 creates new challenges for the nation’s patchwork of state run workplace benefit delivery systems. This paper draws a comparison between COVID claims and asbestos claims, the “Largest and Longest” wave of occupational disease claims in the United States. The comparison offers insight into avoiding past economic, administrative and benefit delivery pitfalls. The lessons from asbestos claims provide an insight into maintaining a sustainable workers’ compensation system to meet the surge of COVID claims.
Friday, May 8, 2020
NJ Division of Workers' Compensation Expands Active Judicial Staff During the COVID-19 Emergency
The Director and Chief Judge of the NJ DIvision of Workers' Compensation has announced that additional judges of compensation will actively join the staff during the statewide COVID-19 emergency.
Thursday, May 7, 2020
NJ Division of Workers' Compensation COVID-19 Closing Extended to May 26, 2020
Notice to the Bar May 7, 2020
This notice announces additional statewide steps by the New Jersey Division of Workers’ Compensation to address the ongoing public health crisis surrounding the COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak in New Jersey.
OSHA Sued to Implement Mandatory Worker Safety Standards at Meatpacking Facilities
5,000 meat and poultry plant workers have been sickened by COVID-19, but most facilities show no signs of improving public health and safety measures
Yesterday, Center for Food Safety and Food Chain Workers Alliance filed a legal action demanding that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) issue an emergency temporary standard to protect workers in meat processing plants due to the high percentage of workers who have been sickened by COVID-19.
Tuesday, February 25, 2020
CDC Coronavirus Guidance Sets a Standard for Employer Responsibility and Liability
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention [CDC] has issued an interim guidance based on what is currently known about the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19). The guidance sets out a plan of containment initially, and if that fails, mitigation of the spread of this very contagious and potentially fatal disease. If employers follow the guidance, in all likelihood workers' compensation issues will arise as to the payment of temporary and medical benefits following from occupational exposure at work to the COVID-19.
Monday, December 3, 2018
Fee Schedules: A defense of bureaucracy in workers compensation
Today's guest post was authored by Jon Rehm**, Esquire of the Nebraska Bar.
Former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie
Lawyers on “both sides of the v.” in Nebraska like to grumble about rules and regulations imposed by the workers’ compensation court.
Thursday, December 1, 2016
New Jersey Workers Are at High Risk for Asthma
The US Centers for Disease Control reported today that workers in various industries and occupations are at risk for work-related asthma. CDC analyzed data from the 2013 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System Asthma Call-back Survey and determined that in 21 states among an estimated 74 million adults employed at some time in the 12 months preceding the interview, 7.7% had current asthma.
Tuesday, September 20, 2016
Workers' Compensation "Demise of the Grand Bargain" Seminar Papers Online
The 2016 workers' compensation "Grand Bargain" seminar sponsored by the Pound Civil Justice Institute has posted the draft seminar papers online in PDF format and are available for download. The 2016 Academic Symposium is entitled, "The Demise of the Grand Bargain: Compensation for Injured Workers in the 21st Century."
Saturday, June 25, 2016
The Social Security Financial Report: An Insight Into the Future
Change is coming to the Social Security Disability program based upon the The 2016 Trustees Report that was published this week. It projects that the future finances of the Social Security Disability Trust Fund will require additional funding to remain solvent.
Monday, May 9, 2016
Announcing the WorkersCompensation.com Best Blog Designees for 2016
WorkersCompensation.com, "the original and largest regulatory and compliance information center available for the workers' compensation industry," has announced the best blog designations for 2016:
"The blogs below were all nominated by citizens of the workers' compensation community. They were judged on several criteria. In addition to objective categories such as age of blog, frequency of posting and website traffic**, they were also assessed by an independent judging panel for content quality, value and timeliness. Designated blog category was determined by people nominating the blog. In the event of multiple nominations, the category selected by the majority of nominators was used.
Thursday, June 25, 2015
The Path to Federalization: US Supreme Court Again Validates the Affordable Care Act
The US Supreme Court again affirmed the validity of The Affordable Care Act. The Obamacare program, as it has been nicknamed, will continue to lead to a medical delivery program than eventually will have major repercussions on the antiquated and ineffective medical care system of the existing patch work of state workers' compensation insurance acts.
Thursday, August 28, 2014
Former clerk sues Hackensack council, former city manager
Today's post is shared from northjersey.com
The former Hackensack clerk is suing the city, the former interim manager and all five City Council members for “in excess of” $2 million over claims they illegally retaliated against her and drove her out of her job because of her personal relationship with a political foe of the administration.
Debra Heck, who left the job in December, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Newark. Heck said in the complaint that she resigned because of “hostile” and “intolerable” working conditions and intimidation by her superiors.
The alleged hostility began when council members learned that she was in a romantic relationship with Richard Salkin, a former city attorney who is aligned with the council’s political opponents, according to the lawsuit.
“The city had no problem with her job performance until it became publicly known she was engaged in a relationship with Rick Salkin,” said Heck’s lawyer, Jason Nunnermacker. “They continued to discriminate against her because of her perceived political affiliations and her relationship with him. They made her miserable.”
City attorney Thomas Scrivo did not return calls...
[Click here to see the rest of this post]
The former Hackensack clerk is suing the city, the former interim manager and all five City Council members for “in excess of” $2 million over claims they illegally retaliated against her and drove her out of her job because of her personal relationship with a political foe of the administration.
Debra Heck, who left the job in December, filed the lawsuit Wednesday in U.S. District Court in Newark. Heck said in the complaint that she resigned because of “hostile” and “intolerable” working conditions and intimidation by her superiors.
The alleged hostility began when council members learned that she was in a romantic relationship with Richard Salkin, a former city attorney who is aligned with the council’s political opponents, according to the lawsuit.
“The city had no problem with her job performance until it became publicly known she was engaged in a relationship with Rick Salkin,” said Heck’s lawyer, Jason Nunnermacker. “They continued to discriminate against her because of her perceived political affiliations and her relationship with him. They made her miserable.”
City attorney Thomas Scrivo did not return calls...
[Click here to see the rest of this post]
Wednesday, August 27, 2014
Preventing Heart Attacks in Firefighters
| Every year nearly 100 firefighters die on the job and one half of those deaths are from fatal heart attacks. These statistics remain consistent year in and out. The very nature of the job automatically puts them at a higher risk. “Being a firefighter, you never know when the bell is gonna ring, when the alarm is gonna sound. We basically go from 0 to 100 like that,” said Rich Mikutsky, vice president of the Firefighters Mutual Benevolent Association (FMBA). Doctors say it’s hard to pinpoint exactly why firefighters have some of the highest rates. But those in the business have a few ideas. “There’s the obvious weight of our equipment, our tools, our Scott Pack, but then there’s the other part of it where we start and stop quickly, ya know, at anytime at night when we could be at full rest we may have to get up and be at full speed,” said Paterson firefighter Kyle Hughes. Extended exposure to traumatic stress, both mentally and physically, boosts inflammation in the body, increasing the risk. Continuous disruptions to the sleep-wake cycle can lead to lower metabolic rates linked directly to heart failure. “Yesterday we had a big fire in Clifton. It started around 1 p.m. and we had a number of guys that suffered heat exhaustion, smoke inhalation, had to be taken to the hospital and fortunately everyone was all right but I saw a couple of them last night around 8 o’clock and they were exhausted.... |
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... |
Monday, August 25, 2014
The Father of the 11th Circuit Court Decision
| Today's post is authored by Peter Rousmaniere and shared from workcompcentral.com The Florida 11th Circuit Court decision on Aug. 13 appears to be the first state court decision in many years to declare an entire workers’ compensation statute as unconstitutional. The fingerprints of the Dean of Workers’ Compensation Research John Burton are all over Judge Jorge Cueto’s reasoning. Since the 1970s, Burton, with a law degree and PhD in economics, has been the leading academic scholar in workers’ compensation, even now years after his retirement from a faculty position at Rutgers University. Burton surely thinks that this decision is long coming. So, what’s his complaint? Cueto wrote that through the years, the state has cut back permanent partial disability benefits so severely that the state “no longer provides any benefits for this class of disabled worker.” Burton’s writings indicate that he holds that whatever permanent disability benefits there are in Florida, they are so low and PPD so significant, that the entire workers’ comp system in Florida is inadequate. Cueto agrees. He cites National Council on Compensation Insurance estimates that legislative changes in 1979, 1990, 1994 and 2003 cut PPD benefits severely. Per Burton, Florida “eviscerated the permanent partial benefit system.” The current benefits are “less than available during the 1970s and markedly lower than... |
Friday, August 22, 2014
Why More, Not Fewer, People Might Start Getting Health Insurance Through Work
| In an earnings call last week, Walmart announced that its workers were signing up for health insurance en masse. The news was bad for the company’s shareholders, since the added $500 million it will cost to cover them will eat into expected profits. But it also means that many more low-income families have health insurance now than did last year. The change didn’t come because of a more generous company policy. Walmart has long offered health insurance to its full-time workers for relatively low premiums — about $18 every two weeks for its lowest-paid workers. It came because many more workers decided to take advantage of the offer. It’s early yet to be sure of a strong trend, but the Walmart experience mirrors evidence from early polls and the historical experience of Massachusetts, which enacted a law similar to the Affordable Care Act in 2006. More people may be signing up for employer-based coverage than did before. When we talk about the effect of the Affordable Care Act on health insurance, we often focus on people who were shut out of the market before, either because a prior illness made insurance inaccessible to them or because a high premium put coverage out of their financial reach. What Walmart’s experience reminds us is that there were also uninsured people who simply chose not to buy coverage before there was a law requiring them to do so. Now they may be changing their minds.This increase, if it is permanent, is going to cost... |
Groundbreaking Measure Gives Female First Responders Equal Protection
The California Applicants’ Attorneys Association (CAAA), whose members represent Californians hurt at work, and the California Nurses Association’s (C.N.A.) measure to eliminate gender bias against female first responders in California workers’ compensation insurance passed the Assembly today by a vote of 46 - 23. AB 2616 goes now to the governor for action. AB 2616 (Skinner) is the first measure passed by the Legislature to extend any of the fifteen existing presumptions that male first responders enjoy to first responder occupations dominated by women. “California recognizes that some jobs are so inherently dangerous that those workers should not have to prove that certain injuries were job related,” said CAAA Women’s Caucus Co-Chair Christel Schoenfelder. “First responders like firefighters and police officers who are required to protect the public are presumed to be injured on the job when they get cancer or an infectious disease. There is one group of first responders who do not receive this protection from dangerous conditions. These are hospital employees, 80% of whom are female. Like police officers and firefighters, they are routinely exposed to conditions that can lead to major health problems.” AB 2616 intends to correct this gender imbalance by extending a presumption covering MRSA skin infections to hospital employees who provide direct patient care. MRSA infections are a major health problem in hospitals around the world.
“Nurses and other hospital employees are required to assume great risk, but unlike public safety officers we are not given the same legal protections when we get sick on the job,” said Redding Registered Nurse Kathryn Donahue in a statement urging the governor to sign AB 2616. “MRSA is a virulent antibiotic-resistant staph infection. It’s a job hazard for nurses providing direct patient care in acute care hospitals. MRSA can kill you. Just like police officers and firefighters, nurses put our lives on the line everyday. We don’t know if the patient we are treating has HIV, or MRSA, that we could be exposed to. We just do our job.”
“Assembly member Skinner deserves credit for doggedly pursuing this bill year after year and finally succeeding in her final year,” said Schoenfelder. “Thanks must also go to C.N.A. for making this a priority.”
“Assembly member Skinner deserves credit for doggedly pursuing this bill year after year and finally succeeding in her final year,” said Schoenfelder. “Thanks must also go to C.N.A. for making this a priority.”
One out of every six deaths in the US can be attributed to an infection acquired in a hospital. A first responder has an obligation to perform their duties in an emergency. Female workers are often forced to testify to personal details of their lives in an effort by insurance companies to deny claims. As female workers experience this, it has a chilling effect on the willingness of other female workers to come forth with their claims.
“If nurses or other hospital workers who provide direct patient care get MRSA, we have to prove that it didn’t come from any place but our work,” said Donahue. “That’s an almost impossible burden to meet. It exposes nurses to invasive questioning about our personal lives – even our sexual lives – by insurers’ defense attorneys trying to defeat our claims for medical care and disability compensation.”
Schoenfelder said, “The lack of equal protection for health care workers is, in part, due to gender inequity. Public safety first responders are a predominantly male workforce, but hospital employees providing patient care are a predominantly female workforce. The Labor Code currently provides 15 categories of presumptions for various first responders, and all of them are for male dominated workforces. There is not one presumption for first responders like nurses, which is primarily a female workforce. AB 2616 intends to address this gender imbalance by extending equal protection to female-dominated hospital first responder jobs.”
For more information on AB 2616 Support including a video from a Registered Nurse and an applicant’s attorney perspectives can be viewed here.
Tuesday, August 19, 2014
Florida Businesses, Insurers to Fight Ruling Overturning Workers’ Comp System
| The battle lines are being drawn in the State of Florida as the challenge to the FL workers' compensation law continues following a judicial ruling that the act was unconstitutional because it has been emasculated by Industry reform and its effectiveness diminished to point of rendering the act void. Today's post is shared from .insurancejournal.com A Florida circuit court judge has ruled that the state’s workers’ compensation law is unconstitutional because it no longer provides adequate benefits to injured workers giving up their right to sue. Florida 11th Circuit Court Judge Jorge Cueto handed down the ruling in a case (Padgett v. State of Florida No. 11-13661 CA 25) that could upend the state’s nearly 80-year workers’ compensation law. The case has its genesis in a 2012 instance where a state government worker, Elsa Padgett, sustained an on-the-job injury. After a fall, Padgett had to have a shoulder surgically replaced and was forced to retire due to complications. Padgett, along with several trial bar groups, argued that her workers’ compensation benefits were inadequate and the law unfairly blocked her constitutional right to access the court. The workers’ compensation system is by law the “exclusive remedy” for injured workers. Injured workers are provided medical benefits and certain wage-loss benefits in exchange for forgoing the right to sue their employer in court. Cueto, in a 20-page ruling, avoided making any specific comments on the details of Padgett’s case other than to rule in her favor. Instead, Cueto focused on the exclusive remedy provision of the law, finding that due to the many cuts in medical and wage-loss benefits made by lawmakers over the years, the system no longer represents a fair deal for injured workers. Cueto singled-out workers’... |
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