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(c) 2010-2026 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.

Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Plaintiffs in Calif. lead paint case say companies’ witnesses were ‘not persuasive’

The lead paint industry has not yet come to the table to settle the public health nightmare of lead pigment in paint. Soon California may change the economics of the problem. Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com


SAN JOSE, Calif. (Legal Newsline) — The plaintiffs in a six-week trial over lead paint — 10 cities and counties in California — argue that the one-time paint and pigment manufacturers they’re suing have not presented a “persuasive” case.
The cities and counties — Santa Clara County, San Francisco City, Alameda County, Los Angeles County, Monterey County, Oakland City, San Diego City, San Mateo County, Solano County and Ventura County — filed their 52-page statement of decision with the Santa Clara County Superior Court Friday.
Friday was the deadline for all parties in the lead paint trial, which wrapped up last month, to submit their proposed statements of decision, as requested by Judge James Kleinberg. Kleinberg is presiding over The People of California v. Atlantic Richfield Company et al.
Kleinberg
Kleinberg
In their statement of decision, the plaintiffs argue that their witnesses were “credible,” and that the defendants’ witnesses — which refuted evidence offered by the cities and counties — were “not persuasive.”
“Defendants contend that ‘intact’ lead paint does not present a hazard. The Court finds that the evidence demonstrates otherwise,” the plaintiffs wrote in their statement and proposed order. “Lead paint on high friction surfaces presents an immediate hazard, even if it is presently intact, because normal use causes the paint to degrade, exposing young...
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Workers compensation rates to decline in Oregon in 2014

Oregon has been notorious in limiting benefits for injured workers. Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.oregonlive.com


Oregon employers next year, on average, will pay $1.63 per $100 of payroll for workers' compensation insurance. That figure covers the pure premium, the premium assessment, the Workers' Benefit Fund assessment and insurer profit and expenses. Figures above have been adjusted to reflect the 2012 mix of employment and payroll. Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services
Following two years of increases, state officials say workers' compensation insurance rates should decline for most employers in 2014.

The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services said last week that the "pure premium" - the portion set by the state - will drop on average by 7.6 percent.
That does not include insurer expenses and profit. It also does not include smaller taxes that cover the state's administrative costs, reserves for self-insured employers and employer groups and a fund for injured worker benefits and return-to-work programs.

Including those costs, premiums will average $1.63 per $100 of payroll in 2014, down from $1.75 in 2013, a 6.9 percent decrease, state officials said.

Actual rates will vary by industry, the insurer and by individual employer claim experience and payroll size.

But the construction and manufacturing sectors, both historically hazardous industries, should see drops of 11 percent and 8.5 percent respectively, said John Shilts, the state's workers' compensation division administrator.

"The performance of construction and manufacturingin...
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Doing Business in Bangladesh

International fashion safety continues mirror the genesis of the workers" compensation moment in the US. Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from www.nytimes.com


The owner of a clothing factory in Dhaka, Bangladesh, was at New York University last week to meet with clothing industry executives, labor activists and American and European government officials to talk about the Bangladeshi garment industry, the world’s second-biggest exporter of clothes after China.

The workplace disasters in this business have grabbed the world’s attention, and for the past year, Western retailers that outsource their clothing production to Bangladesh have tried to come up with reforms. But there are big obstacles to improving safety in an industry driven by low profits and constant upheaval.

I met with the businessman and another factory owner; both would speak only on the condition that they not be identified because they feared offending their customers. A central problem, the first owner told me, is the rapid turnaround big retailers like Walmart demand when they put in orders for tens of thousands of T-shirts or shorts. Since his factory isn’t able to make all the garments in time, he has to send some of the work to smaller producers. “I can’t do it officially,” he said, “but unofficially, I can.”
Unauthorized subcontracting to smaller, uninspected factories is not supposed to happen, but it remains an entrenched practice. It is a primary reason safety guidelines that apply to bigger contractors have not prevented the hundreds of worker deaths in fires and building collapses in facilities like Rana...

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Monday, September 16, 2013

Tips and Poverty

In the calcuation of wages and rates of benefits, most state workers' compensation programs incoporate tips. Elimination of tips, would eliminated added coverage benefits paid under workers' compensation programs.Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.nytimes.com


When The Times’s restaurant critic, Pete Wells, recently called tipping “irrational, outdated, ineffective, confusing, prone to abuse and sometimes discriminatory,” he was referring mainly to mid- to high-priced restaurants that are considering an end to the practice in favor of surcharges or service-included pricing.

In the diners and other more “value oriented” restaurants that employ most of the nation’s burgeoning ranks of waitresses (the vast majority of servers are female), tips are all that and more. They are part of a parallel economic universe in which employers are allowed to pay sub-minimum wages, with predictably devastating results. According to census data, servers are far more likely than other workers to live in poverty.

It is a national disgrace when hard work, in any industry, leaves workers in poverty. But falling living standards and economic hardship among tipped workers signal prolonged stagnation throughout the economy. That’s because employment growth in restaurants and bars has outpaced growth in nearly all other sectors in recent years, including health care, manufacturing, retail and financial services. 

If wages in food-service and other service jobs are not lifted, it is hard to see where adequate consumer demand will come from to generate and sustain a real recovery.

It is not tipping that most needs to end, however. What needs to change is the federal law that sets the minimum wage for tipped workers...
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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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What to Do About Futile Critical Care

The last year of an injured worker's life is probably the most expensive for medical costs. Usually such expenses account for 50% of lifetime care costs. Associated with a work-related claim  researchers are struggling how to limit unnecessary costs and maintain ethical and moral responsibilities. Today's post was shared by The Health Care Blog and comes from thehealthcareblog.com

By Neil S. Wenger, MD


Thanks to extraordinary advances in medicine, critical care providers can save lives even when the cards are stacked against their patients. However, there are times when no amount of care, however cutting-edge it is, will save a patient. In these instances, when physicians recognize that patients will not be rescued, further critical care is said to be “futile.” In a new study, my RAND and UCLA colleagues and I find that critical care therapies that physicians regard as “futile” are not uncommon in intensive care units, raising some uncomfortable questions.


Of course, we’re fortunate to have such fantastic technology at our disposal — but we must address how to use it appropriately when the patient may not benefit from high-intensity measures. When aggressive critical care is unsuccessful at achieving an acceptable level of health for the patient, treatment should focus on palliative care.

In our study, my colleagues and I quantified the prevalence and cost of “futile” critical care in the journal JAMA Internal Medicine. This can be seen as the first step toward reevaluating the status quo and better optimizing care for critical care patients.

After convening a group of critical care clinicians to determine a consensus definition of “futile treatment,” our research team analyzed nearly 7,000 daily assessments of more than 1,000 patients.
We found that 11 percent received futile...
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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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Bridge Safety: Many U.S. Spans Are Old, Risky And Rundown

Transportation accidents are one of the leading cause of work-related compensation claims. Today's post was shared by Huffington Post and comes from www.huffingtonpost.com

Bridge Safety

Motorists coming off the Frederick Douglass Memorial Bridge into Washington are treated to a postcard-perfect view of the U.S. Capitol. The bridge itself, however, is about as ugly as it gets: The steel underpinnings have thinned since the structure was built in 1950, and the span is pocked with rust and crumbling concrete.

District of Columbia officials were so worried about a catastrophic failure that they shored up the horizontal beams to prevent the bridge from falling into the Anacostia River.

And safety concerns about the Douglass bridge, which is used by more than 70,000 vehicles daily, are far from unique.

An Associated Press analysis of 607,380 bridges in the most recent federal National Bridge Inventory showed that 65,605 were classified as "structurally deficient" and 20,808 as "fracture critical." Of those, 7,795 were both – a combination of red flags that experts say indicate significant disrepair and similar risk of collapse.

A bridge is deemed fracture critical when it doesn't have redundant protections and is at risk of collapse if a single, vital component fails. A bridge is structurally deficient when it is in need of rehabilitation or replacement because at least one major component of the span has advanced deterioration or other problems that lead inspectors to deem its condition poor or worse.
Engineers say the bridges are safe. And despite the ominous sounding classifications, officials say that even bridges that are structurally...
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State files charges against city business

Employer fraud results in criminal charges.Today's post was shared by WCBlog and comes from citizensvoice.com


The state Department of Labor & Industry on Friday filed criminal charges against a Wilkes-Barre business, alleging it failed to maintain worker's compensation insurance.
Kus Tire Inc. at 10 Carey Ave. is charged with 100 felony counts of failing to procure worker's compensation insurance, court records say.

A message left seeking comment at Kus Tire was not immediately returned.

According to a criminal complaint, the business, headed by Bernard Kusakavitch, failed to have the insurance for 100 days - from Sept. 10, 2008, through Sept. 17, 2008, and again from Oct. 1, 2011, through Dec. 31, 2011.

As a self-insured employer, the business was not exempt from possessing the coverage, the charges say.

The complaint said an employee, Walter Booth Jr., was injured Sept. 12, 2008, and subsequently petitioned for benefits from the Uninsured Employers Guaranty Fund, which provides benefits to injured employees of uninsured employers.

According to the complaint, Workers' Compensation Judge Joseph B. Sebastianelli awarded Booth benefits on May 31, 2011.

Investigators filed a summons against the business Friday. The matter is scheduled for a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Rick Cronauer at 9 a.m. Oct. 31.
jhalpin@citizensvoice.com

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