Workers' Compensation

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

The Next Wave: N.H.L. Players Sue League Over Head Injuries

Occupational illness claims have been a traditional battleground in workers' compensation for larger and more significant lawsuits and dynamic changes in the safety of the workplace induced by economics.

From the lack of the incorporation of occupational claims in the 1911 model workers' compensation acts, in the 1950's, employers and their insurance companies sought refuge under the "exclusivity bar" of the. workers' compensation act to shield themselves from negligence actions for silicosis and asbestosis claims.

The creativity of claimant's lawyers, and the blatant intentional tort acts of unscrupulous asbestos companies, brought forth a sweeping change in the economic balance as claimants used the civil justice system to establish an avenue for adequate compensation for asbestos victims (lung cancer, asbestosis and mesothelioma claims).

Asbestos litigation, "longest running tort, continues today and is the perfect example of the societal benefits of a working civil justice system. In fact, the same dynamic existed in: tobacco litigation, lead paint litigation, latex litigation and has been repeated many times over.

The civil justice system, not the workers' compensation system, established an economic incentive establishing a safer workplace for workers and their families.

It is more than obvious that contact sports are seeing the next wave of litigation as the employers and their insurance companies accelerate the cycle, by barring professional athletic players from even seeking workers' compensation benefits, ie. California.

Since it appears that no safe helmet can be manufactured to protect the mayhem of some contact sports, the business of sports will be the next "industry" to experience economic incentives to make the workplace safer. The higher education system will just have to find another economic engine to fund colleges and university and stop luring students to play dangerous sports in hope of winning the professional sports lottery.

First football, now hockey, are emerging targets of the civil justice system as the economics of safety takes hold and the need for safety takes hold. Today's post is shared from the nytimes.com.

Ten former N.H.L. players sued the league Monday for negligence and fraud, saying the sport’s officials should have done more to address head injuries but instead celebrated a culture of speed and violence.

The players, who were in the league in the 1970s, ’80s and ’90s, filed their suit in federal court in Washington. One of the lead lawyers is Mel Owens, a former N.F.L. player who has represented scores of other retired players in workers’ compensation cases.

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Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson). For over 4 decades the Law Offices of Jon L Gelman 1.973.696.7900 jon@gelmans.com have been representing injured workers and their families who have suffered occupational accidents and illnesses.

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Monday, November 25, 2013

A Reference Guide for Controlling Health Hazards to Hospital Workers

The bad news is that hospital workers have extremely high injury rates compared to other occupations.

The good news is that there are many practical and proven ways to avoid these injuries. A supplemental issue of New Solutions: A Journal of Environmental and Occupational Health Policy offers a new free report that describes over 30 health hazards to hospital workers and over 150 ways to avoid them.

In Controlling Health Hazards to Hospital Workers: A Reference Guide, specialists in occupational medicine from the United States and India describe ways to control everything from anesthetic gases to X-rays.

Hazards addressed include lifting and other ergonomic hazards, communicable diseases, hazardous drugs, chemicals, radiation, violence, stress and shift work. The researchers have summarized the literature on controlling these hazards by engineering means such as ventilation, shielding, automation, and administrative changes in procedures.

Each section describes the hazard, the literature on controls and internet resources where the reader can find more information. There are also general tips about identifying hazards and setting priorities.

The Mount Sinai School of Medicine and the New York State Nurses Association have made this supplemental issue of New Solutions (Baywood Publishing) available for free in order to reach healthcare professionals and hospital workers around the world. “It will be great for hospitals to have all this information in one resource guide,” said Professor Somashekhar Nimbalkar, one of the authors. “We will be sure to send it around to every hospital in India.”

The report, Controlling Health Hazards to Hospital Workers: A Reference Guide, New Solutions, Vol. 23, Supplement, 2013 can be freely downloaded at: http://baywood.metapress.com/link.asp?id=j676v4ul5026

The report will also be posted on the web site of the New York State Nurses Association at www.nysna.org/HealthHazards.pdf
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Boeing warns 15 airlines of high-altitude ice problem for Dreamliner

Aviation safety is again in the news as Boeing issues are notice to 15 major airlines worldwide of concern about engine freezing in their new Dreamliner at higher altitudes. Today's post is shared from Reuters.com

Boeing plans to raise production of the 787 Dreamliner to 12 per month by 2016

Fifteen airlines have been warned about the risk of ice forming on Boeing's new 747-8 and 787 Dreamliner planes.

The issue - affecting some types of engines made by General Electric when planes fly near high-level thunderstorms - prompted Japan Airlines to cancel two international routes.

There have been six incidents since April when aircraft powered by GE engines lost power at high altitude.

These are the latest technical issues to hit the Dreamliner.

They saw the entire fleet being grounded earlier this year following battery problems.

The Boeing 747-8 series and the new 787 Dreamliner are the only types of aircraft affected by the high-altitude icing issue.

The new warning was given to airlines including Lufthansa, United Airlines and Japan Airlines.
It says aircraft with the affected engines - GE's GEnx - must not be flown within 50 nautical miles of thunderstorms that may contain ice crystals.
As a result, Japan Airlines (JAL) has decided to withdraw Dreamliners from service on the Tokyo-Delhi and Tokyo-Singapore routes.

"Boeing and JAL share a commitment to the safety of passengers and crews on board our airplanes. We respect JAL's decision to suspend some 787...

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California Workers' Compensation Rates Going Up in 2014

Despite the fact that recent legislation in California limited access to the Worker's Compensation system even further, and imposed medical treatment review procedures without the availability of an adversary system, worker's Compensation rates are increasing in 2014.

Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones today adopted an advisory average pure premium rate of 2.70 dollars per 100 dollars of employer payroll for workers compensation rates effective January 1, 2014.

The adopted amount is lower than that proposed by the Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating
Bureau of California's (WCIRB). The WCIRB's proposed advisory average rate was $2.75 per $100 of payroll.

The WCIRB's proposed advisory average pure premium rate is 8.7% ($2.75 per $100 of payroll) above the industry's average filed rates as of July 1, 2013 and the adopted pure premium rate ($2.70 per $100 of payroll) is 6.7% above the industry's average filed rates as of July 1, 2013.

Commissioner Jones, the WCIRB and the public members' actuary all agree that the overall impact of SB 863 (2012) continues to result in savings for the workers' compensation system.

The California Department of Insurance continues to observe that medical and indemnity losses are outpacing wage growth and consequently, the average advisory pure premium will increase in 2014.
Media Note:

The commissioner's pure premium decision is advisory only. Pursuant to California law, the commissioner does not set or have authority over workers' compensation insurance rates. The commissioner's advisory pure premium rate is not predictive of what an individual insurance company may charge its policyholders because the review of pure premium rates is just one component of insurance pricing.
Workers' Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California

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Parsippany NJ settles $54,000 workers' comp dispute with ex-construction official

Sick Leave Benefits were the subject of a $54,000 settlement where the employee received temporary disability benefits and a NJ municipality attempted to dock the employee of benefits. Today's post is shared from The Star Ledger nj.com

The township has agreed to pay its former construction official $54,063 to settle a workers' compensation dispute that surrounded sick days that were docked from his accrual bank.

"Authorities have reached a settlement agreement and release with Edward J. Corcoran, retired construction official," Councilman Paul Carifi Jr. said at the Nov. 12 council meeting.

"He received workman's compensation, and at times he was unable to return to work. From Feb. 27 to May 31, sick-day payments were docked from his sick day accrual bank. He disputes the docking from his sick day bank. While not admitting any liability or fault, the township and Corcoran have engaged in a settlement."

Corcoran had been employed as the township's construction official since July 21, 1994, according to the Nov. 13 settlement agreement.. On Jan. 23, he was injured in a work-related incident and unable to return to work, and began receiving workers' compensation temporary disability payments, the settlement said.

On Jan. 29, Corcoran was evaluated at Concentra Urgent Care, and on Feb. 1, Concentra determined he reached maximum medical improvement — meaning treatment would no longer improve his medical condition, and benefits would be terminated.
On Feb. 26,...

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The Affordable Care Act, brought to you by ……… the Republicans!

Many might now welcome a Nixon ticket.

Today's post comes from guest author Jay Causey, from Causey Law Firm.

Looking for information in the media that is supportive of the nation’s transition to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka “Obamacare?” At the moment Republican and right wing noise is drowning out much of the lower–decibel cheerleading by the Administration on why this is a good thing.

In 1974, Pres. Richard Nixon proposed what is essentially the 2010 healthcare act – all but the smallest employers would provide medical insurance to their employees or pay a penalty, expansion of Medicaid would insure the poor, and subsidies would be provided to low–income citizens and small employers.

     In a recent op-ed piece, former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton and leading economic expert, now at the University of California, Berkeley, Robert Reich summed up the history of the origin of “Obamacare,” pointing out the irony of the right wing’s fuss over it.
     In 1974, Pres. Richard Nixon proposed what is essentially the 2010 healthcare act – all but the smallest employers would provide medical insurance to their employees or pay a penalty, expansion of Medicaid would insure the poor, and subsidies would be provided to low–income citizens and small employers. While private insurers liked this plan, Democrats favored a system more like Social Security and Medicare, so there was no consensus.
     Fast-forward to 1989, and the right–leaning Heritage Foundation proposed a plan that would mandate all households obtaining adequate insurance. This plan worked its way into several bills introduced by Republicans in 1993, supported by Senators Hatch (R–Utah) and Grassley (R–Iowa), along with subsequent Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich, all now vocal opponents of the ACA.
     When in 2004 Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney made the original Nixon plan the law in his state, with the same mandate to buy private insurance, he said, “we got the idea of an individual mandate from Newt Gingrich, and he got it from the Heritage Foundation.”
     Health insurance companies, now retooling their policies around the individual mandate, are jubilant about the possibilities of long–term membership growth through the insurance exchanges. These giant corporations have traditionally supported conservative and Republican politics.
     So as Reich notes – – why are Republican spending so much energy trying to sabotage the ACA, and act they designed and about which a huge sector of their patrons are wildly enthusiastic? The answer: it is the singular achievement of the Obama Administration, the head of which is still considered by a large segment of the right to Illegitimately occupy the White House.
     Reich goes on to observe that had the Democrats prevailed on the idea of a system built on the Social Security and Medicare model – – cheaper, simpler, and more widely accepted by the citizenry – – Republicans would nevertheless be making the same noise.

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Macy’s Joining Wal-Mart on Thanksgiving Energizes Labor

Macy’s Inc. (M), whose annual Manhattan Parade is a cherished Thanksgiving tradition for millions, is starting a new holiday ritual: It’s asking its employees to show up for work.

Pressured by competition, a shorter shopping season and lackluster consumer spending, at least a dozen U.S. mega-retailers are opening for the first time on Thanksgiving Day,such as Macy’s, or opening earlier that day than in previous years. They are following Wal-Mart Stores Inc. (WMT), the largest U.S.employer, which has been open for business on Thanksgiving for more than 25 years.

“Another holiday bites the dust in favor of retailers,”Candace Corlett, president of New York consulting firm WSL Strategic Retail, said in a Nov. 12 phone interview. “Our Culture now is to shop, and to get the best deals. Thanksgiving As a day of rest was another culture, another time, not today.”

The expansion of hours will take more than a million employees away from their families during the holiday. Organized Labor has been encouraging low-wage employees to join unions foryears to stem membership losses, and now wants to use the Thanksgiving hours to encourage workers to band together to improve working conditions.

“It plays into the larger themes that we’ve been pushing around low-wage workers who don’t have a lot of job security,”Amaya Smith, a spokeswoman for the AFL-CIO, said in an interview. “Thanksgiving, Black Friday is one example of one holiday...

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Accelerated aging found in long-term unemployed men

Today's post was shared by RWJF PublicHealth and comes from www.medicalnewstoday.com

Men who are unemployed for more than two years show signs of faster ageing in their DNA, a new study has found.
Researchers at Imperial College London and the University of Oulu, Finland studied DNA samples from 5,620 men and women born in Finland in 1966.
They measured structures called telomeres, which lie at the ends of chromosomes and protect the genetic code from being degraded. Telomeres become shorter over a person's lifetime, and their length is considered a marker for biological ageing. Short telomeres are linked to higher risk of age-related diseases such as type 2 diabetes and heart disease.
The researchers looked at telomere length in blood cells from samples collected in 1997, when the participants were all 31 years old. The study, funded by the Wellcome Trust, found that men who had been unemployed for more than two of the preceding three years were more than twice as likely to have short telomeres compared to men who were continuously employed,.
The analysis accounted for other social, biological and behavioural factors that could have affected the result, helping to rule out the possibility that short telomeres were linked to medical conditions that prevented participants from working.
This trend was not seen in women, which may be because fewer women than men in the study were unemployed for long periods in their 30s. Whether long-term unemployment is more harmful for men than women later in life needs to be addressed in future studies.
The Imperial team...

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November 22: Clara Lemlich

Clara Lemlich made a spontaneous speech at Cooper Union on this date in 1909 that sparked the “Uprising of the 20,000,” an industry-wide strike mobilized by the new International Ladies Garment Workers Union.

“I want to say a few words!” shouted Lemlich, a 23-year-old garment worker (usually described as 19), following AFL leader Samuel Gompers’ speech. She was a member of the ILGWU’s executive board and had been arrested seventeen times, with broken ribs to show for it. “I have no further patience for talk,” she said upon reaching the podium, “as I am one of those who feels and suffers from the things pictured. I move that we go on a general strike . . . now!” The strike lasted until February and was met with constant violence, but at its end the union had increased its membership from thehundreds to some twenty thousand, and most of the major sweatshop owners had signed union contracts — except for the Triangle Shirtwaist Company. Lemlich remained an activist throughout her life until her death in 1982 at 96. (For a brief Jewish Currents interview with Clara Lemlich in the year of her death, visit our archive and scan down to “L.”)

“If I turn traitor to the cause I now pledge, may this hand wither from the arm I now raise.” —Traditional Yiddish oath, led in recitation by Clara Lemlich after the strike resolution passed

The Jewish Currents Pushcart now carries a...

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Red Bird Express sued for allegedly refusing to rehire injured worker

Today's post was shared by votersinjuredatwork and comes from www.naidw.org

A Worden trucking company is accused of refusing to allow an employee to come back to work after he was hurt on the job.

Christopher Chancey filed a lawsuit Oct. 24 in Madison County Circuit Court against Red Bird Express.
Chancey says he began working for Red Bird Express in December 2010. In August 2011, according to the complaint, Chancey was injured while working and filed a workers’ compensation claim which allowed him to take time off and receive benefits.
Chancey claims his doctor said he was ready to return to work full-time onApril 15. However, when he went back to Red Bird and asked to be reinstated in his position Chancey says he was told by the company that his job had been filled and there was no other work available. Chancey also alleges Red Bird did not fill his vacant position until after his doctor released him to work again.
The trucking company is accused of violating Illinois’ Workers’ Compensation Act after failing to recall Chancey to work which Chancey contends was in retaliation for filing an on-the-job injury claim. Chancey asks for more than $100,000 in punitive and compensatory damages for lost wages, lost benefits and costs of the lawsuit.
Attorneys Thomas C. Rich, Kristina D. Cooksey and Michelle M. Rich of Fairview Heights represent Chancey.
Madison County Circuit Court Case No. 13-L-1788

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Illinois Employer to Pay $10K Penalty for Lack of Workers’ Comp Insurance

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

An uninsured employer in Illinois has pled guilty to a Class 4 felony for refusing to obtain workers’ compensation insurance, the Illinois Workers’ Compensation Commission announced.
John Linek, individually and as president of SMS Logistics of Chicago, has been ordered to pay a $10,000 penalty for refusing to obtain workers’ compensation insurance.
The IWCC’s Insurance Compliance Unit had been requesting compliance with the Act from this trucking firm since 2010.
In August 2013, the Compliance Division obtained a felony conviction against Ahmed Ghosien, d/b/a Ghosien European Auto Werks in Hometown. Ghosien pled guilty to a Class 4 felony for failing to obtain workers’ compensation insurance.
The IWCC’s Insurance Compliance Unit worked with the Cook County Sheriff’s Office and the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Special Prosecutions Division to obtain the conviction.
Again, the Insurance Compliance Unit had worked on the case since 2010.
Both of these individuals were given many opportunities to obtain insurance before charges were filed, but they persistently refused, the IWCC said.

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Workers Compensation For Firefighters Discussed

The Kentucky Association of Firefighters is backing legislation that presumes full-time firefighters who develop cancer got it on the job and would be eligible to collect workers compensation.
Representatives of the organization made their case in Frankfort on Thursday (Nov. 21) before House and Senate members of the Interim Joint Committee on Labor and Industry.
They were joined by Doctor Virginia Weaver, a physician and professor of Occupational Medicine at Johns Hopkins University. She says the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health is doing some important research on the hazards of firefighting.
“They’re looking at firefighters from three major cities in the U.S., comparing risk for cancer in firefighters with the general U.S. public, and found an increased overall risk for all cancer, an increased individual risk focused in the digestive tract and the respiratory tract.” –Virginia Weaver
The bill that’s being proposed in Kentucky would only apply to professional firefighters who’ve been on the job at least five years. It would also exclude those who smoke.

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These Are The 36 Countries That Have Better Healthcare Systems Than The US

12 years ago, the World Health Organization released the World Health Report 2000. Inside the report there was an ambitious task — to rank the world's best healthcare systems.
The results became notorious — the US healthcare system came in 15th in overall performance, and first in overall expenditure per capita. That result meant that its overall ranking was 37th.
The results have long been debated, with critics arguing that the data was out-of-date, incomplete, and that factors such as literacy and life expectancy were over-weighted.
So controversial were the results that the WHO declined to rank countries in their World Health Report 2010, but the debate has raged on. In that same year, a report from the Commonwealth Fund ranked seven developed countries on their health care performance — the US came dead last.
So, what can we learn from the report?
NOTE: The rankings are based on an index of five factors — health, health equality, responsiveness, responsiveness equality, and fair financial contribution. As noted above, all data is from 2000 or earlier and these findings have been questioned.

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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

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