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. 

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.

Higher Ceiling, Frozen Floor

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

Asbestos Claims Clock Runs Out

Quebec’s Court of Appeal has refused to disturb the Asbestos Corporation Limited claims regime. For American workers’ compensation practitioners, carriers, and self-insured employers, the September 10, 2026 bar date is now the only date that matters.

Libby Care Dies Quietly

The federal model for occupational disease care collapsed in Montana. Workers’ compensation inherits the wreckage.

The Night Shift Penalty

New cohort data ties night work and chronic insomnia to sharply higher long-COVID risk, and it hands both sides of the workers’ compensation bar a fresh causation fight.

EPA's Asbestos Rule Awaits Data

How EPA's Request for Information on Legacy Asbestos Fits Into the Regulatory and Workers' Compensation Picture

Roundup Shields, Workers Lose

Monsanto Co. v. Durnell, 609 U. S. ___ (2026): the Supreme Court holds that FIFRA expressly preempts a state failure-to-warn claim, and the ripple reaches workers' compensation.

Asbestos Burden Persists Quietly

What a new national study reveals about mesothelioma, occupational exposure, and the future of workers' compensation claims.

Asbestos at the Fifth Circuit

How a TSCA Rule Argument Reaches Into Workers’ Compensation.

Medicaid Care Workers: Not Jointly Employed

 In a significant ruling for the home care and Medicaid services industry, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit affirmed that a financial management services vendor does not qualify as a joint employer of home care workers under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). The decision in Talarico v. Public Partnerships LLC, decided May 19, 2026, carries important implications for workers' compensation coverage, overtime liability, and the rights of workers who are exposed to occupational hazards, including asbestos, in home health settings.

9,000,000 Reasons to Say Thank You

Workers' Compensation Law Blog Reaches 9 Million Hits

OSHA Violations: Workers’ Compensation Impact

A willful OSHA violation is serious, but in New Jersey, it is not a magic key that unlocks the door to civil litigation against an employer. Over a decade after the New Jersey Supreme Court’s landmark ruling in Van Dunk v. Reckson Associates Realty Corp., 210 N.J. 449 (2012), that foundational principle remains firmly in place and continues to shape how injured workers, employers, and practitioners navigate the intersection of OSHA enforcement and the workers’ compensation system.

Roundup's Reach: Workers' Compensation at Stake

Today the Supreme Court heard one of the most consequential pesticide preemption cases in decades. At stake: whether state failure-to-warn claims against Monsanto's Roundup herbicide are preempted by the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA). The Court's eventual ruling will send shockwaves through workers' compensation and occupational disease litigation nationwide.

Pabst Brews a Legal Storm

On April 15, 2026, the Wisconsin Supreme Court handed down a landmark ruling that will reverberate through asbestos litigation, workers’ compensation law, and premises liability for years to come. In Estate of Carol Lorbiecki v. Pabst Brewing Co., 2026 WI 12, the court held that a brewery owner could be found liable under Wisconsin’s Safe Place Statute for a steamfitter’s fatal mesothelioma, even though the worker was employed by an independent contractor, not by Pabst. The decision affirms a $6.9 million judgment, including punitive damages, and clarifies important principles governing the rights of workers exposed to occupational hazards on third-party premises.

EPA Sued Over Asbestos

On April 21, 2026, the Asbestos Disease Awareness Organization (ADAO) filed a federal lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and its Administrator Lee Zeldin in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. The complaint, filed as Case No. 1:26-cv-01350, seeks to compel the EPA to fulfill a mandatory, non-discretionary duty under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), a duty that has gone unfulfilled for over a year, leaving millions of workers and their families exposed to the continuing hazard of legacy asbestos.

Workplace Disease & Household Liability

A landmark California Supreme Court ruling in 2023 reversed earlier lower-court decisions and shielded employers from "take-home" COVID-19 liability — but the legal landscape for occupational disease exposure to household members remains complex and evolving. Here is what workers' compensation practitioners, employers, and injured workers need to know.

Hidden Hazards at Work

The chemicals you work with every day might be poisoning you—and their identities are legally hidden. Under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), thousands of industrial chemicals remain shrouded in confidentiality, making it nearly impossible for workers to know what they're being exposed to and extremely difficult to prove workers' compensation claims when illness strikes.