Click here to read the entire report: Complete State of the Line Presentation from AIS 2012
Friday, May 11, 2012
Unsustainable
Click here to read the entire report: Complete State of the Line Presentation from AIS 2012
Wednesday, May 9, 2012
EPA to Discuss Plans for Addressing Contaminated Passaic River Sediment
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will discuss plans to address high levels of contaminants, including PCBs, mercury and dioxin, which are present in Passaic River mud adjacent to Riverside Park in Lyndhurst, New Jersey. Dioxin causes serious health effects, including cancer. PCBs are suspected carcinogens and mercury can cause serious damage to the nervous system. Steps are being taken under the Superfund program by the EPA to isolate and prevent movement of the contaminants from this area to other parts of the river. EPA is overseeing technical planning that has been initiated by the parties potentially responsible for the contamination. Superfund is the federal cleanup program established in 1980 to investigate and clean up the country’s most hazardous waste sites. The Superfund program operates on the principle that polluters should pay for the cleanups, rather than passing the costs to taxpayers. When sites are placed on the Superfund list, the EPA looks for parties responsible for the pollution and requires them to pay for the cleanups. Cleanups are only funded by taxpayer dollars when the responsible parties cannot be found or are not financially viable.
In the long term, risks to people wading in contaminated mud in the Passaic River alongside Riverside Park are slightly above EPA levels of concern. The EPA recommends that the public avoid wading in the mud flats in Lyndhurst.
The EPA will hold two public meetings on May 9 to discuss the planned cleanup actions and the results of recent sampling efforts in Riverside Park and the adjacent mud flats. The public meetings will be held from 3 PM to 5 PM and again from 7 PM to 9 PM in the court room of Lyndhurst Town Hall located at 367 Valleybrook Avenue.
The EPA estimates that cleanup work in the contaminated mud flats adjacent to Riverside County Park in Lyndhurst could begin in spring 2013 and extend for a period of time into summer 2013. The EPA will work closely with local officials, river and park users, the Passaic River Community Advisory Group, stakeholder organizations and the Lyndhurst community to provide information on these plans, coordinate the cleanup, and minimize possible disruptions to river and park use to the extent possible.
The EPA is overseeing a comprehensive investigation of contamination in the Passaic River that is being carried out by a group of parties potentially responsible for the contamination. Preliminary findings suggest that there could be six to eight additional mud flats in the Newark Bay to Garfield stretch of the river where elevated levels of contamination could warrant a closer look and possible action. While the EPA does not anticipate that the other mud flats present an immediate threat to recreational users of the park or river, it is working with the potentially responsible parties to plan additional sampling out of an abundance of caution. Those detailed sampling plans are being developed now to examine the mud flat areas.
Results from the latest round of mud flat sampling from this past winter are currently undergoing final review by the EPA. Any follow-up sampling deemed necessary by the EPA will likely take place under EPA oversight later this summer or fall, with results expected back in late 2012. EPA will provide the public with the sampling results as the information becomes available and will ensure that all communities are effectively engaged and informed.
Very low levels of PCBs, mercury and dioxin were found earlier this year in soil in the Lyndhurst and North Arlington sections of Riverside Park that likely were carried there by flooding. The concentrations of contaminants detected are well below established levels of concern for children and adolescents playing in the park and for workers maintaining the park. The EPA does not plan on additional sampling of the parks’ recreational areas and cleanup in the park is not necessary. The public can continue to enjoy using Riverside County Park in Lyndhurst but should practice proper hygiene that would normally be followed at any urban park that is prone to flooding.
Information on the investigation and cleanup activities in the lower Passaic River is available on the project Web sites at http://www.ourpassaic.org or http://www.epa.gov/region02/superfund/npl/diamondalkali/
Follow EPA Region 2 on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/eparegion2 and visit our Facebook page, http://www.facebook.com/eparegion2.
For over 3 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 work related accident and injuries.
Monday, May 7, 2012
Facebook, Organ Donations and Medical Privacy of Workers' Compensation
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| (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
Click here to read "Facebook’s New “Organ Donor” Feature: Many Applaud It, but Some Raise Possible Concerns About Protecting Private Health Information"
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Friday, May 4, 2012
Federal Court Rules That Bankruptcy Court May Transfer Insurance Assets to Trust
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled that a Bankruptcy Court is permitted to transfer insurance assets to a trust despite policy prohibitions.
"Federal–Mogul Global and its affiliates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sought to resolve asbestos-related liability through the creation of a personal-injury trust under 11 U.S.C. § 524(g). As part of its reorganization plan, it sought to transfer rights under insurance liability policies to the trust. Appellants Insurers had provided liability policies to the debtors prior to bankruptcy and objected that the transfer violated the policies' anti-assignment provisions. Federal–Mogul contended that 11 U.S.C. § 1123(a)(5)(B) preempts those provisions, and the bankruptcy and district courts agreed. We will affirm."
"In sum, section 524 trusts are the only national statutory scheme extant to resolve asbestos litigation through a quasi-administrative process. In function, the trusts are similar to workers' compensation or other administrative remedies that employ valuation grids to compensate injuries, subject to individualized and judicial review. Unlike those schemes, the trusts place the authority to adjudicate claims in private rather than public hands, a difference that has at times given us and other observers pause, since it endows potentially interested parties with considerable authority."
In re Federal-Mogul Global
--- F.3d ----, 2012 WL 1511773
C.A.3 (Del.),2012.
May 01, 2012
"Federal–Mogul Global and its affiliates filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and sought to resolve asbestos-related liability through the creation of a personal-injury trust under 11 U.S.C. § 524(g). As part of its reorganization plan, it sought to transfer rights under insurance liability policies to the trust. Appellants Insurers had provided liability policies to the debtors prior to bankruptcy and objected that the transfer violated the policies' anti-assignment provisions. Federal–Mogul contended that 11 U.S.C. § 1123(a)(5)(B) preempts those provisions, and the bankruptcy and district courts agreed. We will affirm."
"In sum, section 524 trusts are the only national statutory scheme extant to resolve asbestos litigation through a quasi-administrative process. In function, the trusts are similar to workers' compensation or other administrative remedies that employ valuation grids to compensate injuries, subject to individualized and judicial review. Unlike those schemes, the trusts place the authority to adjudicate claims in private rather than public hands, a difference that has at times given us and other observers pause, since it endows potentially interested parties with considerable authority."
In re Federal-Mogul Global
--- F.3d ----, 2012 WL 1511773
C.A.3 (Del.),2012.
May 01, 2012
Sidetracked By Drugs
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| New York Mayor, Michael R. Bloomberg. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
The focus of major employer and insurance initiatives of so-called reform legislation in multiple jurisdictions has been to reduce the delivery of prescriptive pain relief. Actually, that is an enforcement issue only that globally exists in the health care industry. New York's Mayor Michael Bloomberg, is working diligently to identify and database the few prescribers and physicians involved. A national effort modeled after the New York process would go a long way to curtain excessive and unorthodox prescriptions.
To use the prescription drug abuse issue to attack workers' compensation generally is merely sidetracking the real problem with the medical delivery system which is the global denial of compensability of workers' compensation claims by employers and insurance carriers merely to delay and avoid payment of medical benefits.
The recent decision in Federal Court recognizing RICO violations by an insurance carrier, the employer medical expert, and the employer itself, puts the real focus on the problem. That decision demonstrates the need to get the workers' compensation train back on the tracks and redirect the system so that it pays benefits to injured workers in an efficient and timely basis.
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
Delay By Worker Does Not Give Rise To Legal Malpractice
A Court has held that if an injured worker fails to act in a timely fashion and retain counsel, the law firm ultimately retained cannot be held responsible for not filing a claim in a timely fashion. While a law firm has several responsibilities including: careful investigation of a claim, formulation of a legal strategy, filing of the appropriate papers, and maintenance of communication with a client, the firm cannot be held responsible for the delay incurred by the injured worker.
Millar v Del Sardo, et al., Docket No. A-4386-10T1 (NJ App Div 2012)
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Millar v Del Sardo, et al., Docket No. A-4386-10T1 (NJ App Div 2012)
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Friday, April 27, 2012
Fatal Occupational Injuries and Workers’ Memorial Day
In 2010, a total of 4,690 workers died from injuries they suffered at work. That works out to one U.S. worker dying every 2 hours from a work-related injury.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) program released its final data for the 2010 reference year on April 25, 2012—just 3 days before Workers’ Memorial Day. Recognized each year on April 28, Workers’ Memorial Day is a day to remember workers who were killed, injured, or made ill at work and to highlight the hazards in the workplace.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), and other federal agencies use CFOI data to identify ways to prevent worker deaths and injuries.
This fact sheet provides an overview of fatal occupational injuries in the United States. For more data on fatal occupational injuries from CFOI, see the CFOI homepage. For information on nonfatal injuries and illnesses in the workplace, see the BLS Injuries, Illnesses, and Fatalities (IIF) page.
....on
On Workers' Memorial Day, let us not forget the additional 50,000-60,000 lives lost from occupational diseases every year in our country.
Pat
Patrice Woeppel, Ed.D.
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