Workers' Compensation

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Claims administrator ordered to halt oil spill claims payments

Today's post was shared by Legal Newsline and comes from legalnewsline.com

U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier has ordered claims administrator Patrick Juneau to immediately stop business-related loss payments connected to the 2010 BP oil spill.

Barbier

Barbier, who is overseeing the case at the Eastern District of Louisiana, made the ruling Friday — a day after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit sided with BP concerning the way funds were being paid out under the Court Supervised Settlement Program under the leadership of Juneau.

BP claims Juneau misinterpreted the settlement agreement and allowed businesses that could show little or no economic damages to receive payments. While business claims will be suspended for the time being, all other claims will be allowed to be processed.

“This order is issued only as an immediate and interim measure until the Court is able to confer with and receive input from the parties in order to confect an appropriate ‘narrowly tailored’ preliminary injunction order as instructed by the Fifth Circuit,” Barbier wrote.

Both BP and the plaintiffs’ steering committee also have been ordered to submit a proposal on how damages for businesses should be handled to eliminate the potential for false claims.
The ruling comes after multiple denials by Barbier to revisit the settlement program at BP’s request.
BP, the plaintiffs’ steering committee and Juneau will meet in a status conference on Oct. 11 to go over potential new...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Company Is Scolded for Mistakes at Fukushima

Companies need to be honest with both their and employees and the public about safety issues. The age of conspiracy one would think is long passed. This post is shared from the NY Times and highlights the failings of corporate transparency.

In an unusually public scolding, Japan’s nuclear watchdog agency criticized the operator of the crippled Fukushima nuclear plant on Friday for making mistakes that allowed radioactive water to leak into the Pacific Ocean, and ordered it to fix the problems quickly.

The agency, the Nuclear Regulation Authority, summoned the president of the operator, the Tokyo Electric Power Company, to explain the accidents and spills that have plagued the cleanup of the Fukushima Daiichi plant since it suffered a triple meltdown two years ago. In the most recent mishap, workers spilled 114 gallons of contaminated water this week while trying to fill an already overflowing tank, said the company, known as Tepco. It said some of the water might have run into the ocean.

In a public hearing, an official at the regulatory agency, Katsuhiko Ikeda, dressed down Tepco’s president, saying the problems raised serious questions about the company’s ability to operate its other nuclear plants, like the huge Kashiwazaki-Kariwa facility, which Tepco wants to restart.

“That these leaks occurred due to human error is very regrettable,” Mr. Ikeda told the president, Naomi Hirose. “The failure to make rudimentary checks reflects a clear deterioration in the ability to manage the site.”

Mr. Ikeda said Tepco should consider emergency measures like bringing in workers from its other nuclear plants to help improve the cleanup.

Such blunt and direct...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Jobs Report Becomes a Casualty of Shutdown

Today's post was shared by The New York Times and comes from www.nytimes.com

On the first Friday morning of almost any other month, from the trading floors of Wall Street to the hushed hallways of the Federal Reserve, all the attention would be focused on two numbers: the latest government estimates for unemployment and job creation.

This Friday, much of the government will be closed. As a result, the economists and statisticians at the Bureau of Labor Statistics will be at home, and everyone from Ben S. Bernanke, the Fed’s chairman, to thousands of traders glued to their Bloomberg screens, will be left without one of the most important clues to the state of the economy.

The mystery is heightened by the question of just how much of an impact the shutdown itself will have. And while the job numbers from last month cannot answer that question, economists almost universally agree that the cost to the economy depends on how long the standoff lasts, and whether the much larger danger of a debt default can be averted.

“If it’s short, it’s barely a blip on the radar,” said Ellen Zentner, senior United States economist at Morgan Stanley. “If a shutdown is prolonged, it’s a whole different story.”

Like many Wall Street economists, Ms. Zentner estimates that each week of the shutdown will shave one-tenth to two-tenths of a percentage point off economic growth in the final quarter of 2013.

That may not sound like much, especially in a $16 trillion economy. And during the last extended shutdown in the mid-1990s...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Now the Government Shutdown Is Stopping Blood Drives

Today's post was shared by Mother Jones and comes from www.motherjones.com

Here's how the government shutdown may literally be killing people: by causing blood shortages.

For all the scorn heaped on government employees, some people forget that the faceless bureaucrats who populate Washington are often, in fact, a bunch of do-gooders—people who genuinely believe in the notion of public service. As such, they contribute to the public good in a lot of ways that are taken for granted, like their immense contribution to local blood banks. Thirty-eight percent of the population is eligible to give blood, but only 5 percent actually does so. A lot of that 5 percent apparently works for the federal government. Thanks to the shutdown, in just two days, four federal agency blood drives scheduled by one DC-area health care system have been canceled. The regional Red Cross has had to cancel six others in the Washington region.

Inova Blood Donor Services projects that the cancelations will result in its projected loss of 300 donations that would have helped 900 patients in DC, Maryland, and Virginia. Inova's donated blood collections supply 24 hospitals, which bank much of the blood for inevitable disasters or, say, terrorist attacks. The Red Cross is suffering from similar disruptions, projecting the loss of 229 donations, each of which could potentially save up to three lives. A single major trauma event can easily deplete a hospital's entire blood store. The longer the shutdown goes on, the...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Intervening Superseding Event: Turning in Bed Held Not a Bar to Workers' Compensation

A NJ Workers' Compensation Judge has held that turning over in bed did not constitute an intervening superseding event and therefore the claim was held to be compensable.

"....the act of turning in bed to shut off an alarm clock did not constitute an intervening, superseding
event which would free respondent of the liability for petitioner's second back
surgery of September 27, 2007 and I further find that the need for that surgery is
causally related to the work accident of July 12, 2005."
Philip A. Tornetta, Judge of Compensation

IPPOLITO v. COUNTY OF BERGEN ROAD DEPT
2011 WL 11004007 (N.J. Adm.)
CLAIM PETITION NOS. 2007 - 25283, 2010 - 17376 August 1, 2011
(Reported Oct. 5, 2013)

Related articles

New York Second in Nation for Questionable Workers’ Compensation Claims

New York State is second in the nation, only behind California, for questionable workers’ compensation insurance claims. The Empire State jumped to the second place in 2012 from fifth in 2011, the New York Insurance Association noted.

“Workers compensation insurance fraud is a serious problem in New York,” Ellen Melchionni, president of the New York Insurance Association, said. “Fraud drives up workers compensation rates. The state and insurance industry need to remain vigilant in cracking down on those looking to cheat the system.”

The National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) analysis shows that the number of New York’s questionable claims reported in 2012 was more than double the questionable claims reported in 2011. There were 344 reported in 2012 versus 161 in 2011.

The NICB analysis also shows that in New York State, questionable claims in 2013 are on pace to exceed the 2012 figure. According to data available for the first half of 2013, 183 questionable claims were reported in the state between January and June.

“The growing rate of questionable workers compensation claims is alarming,” Melchionni said. “Fraud takes away from workers compensation serving its intended purpose of protecting injured workers.”
Source: The New York Insurance Association

[Click here to see the original post]

Found on

US data show higher flu vaccine uptake in health workers

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's (CDC's) final flu vaccine coverage estimates for the 2012-13 season, released today, showed a healthy bump in children and a small gain in adults.
The CDC also found improved flu vaccine coverage in healthcare workers, one of the groups the agency has targeted with more intensive efforts to raise immunization levels.

Federal officials unveiled the findings today at a press conference sponsored by the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID) at the National Press Club in Washington, DC. The event was part of a broader effort to rally health groups and the public behind this season's flu vaccination efforts.

Vaccine makers expect to produce about 135 million doses for the US market, and so far 73 million doses have been distributed, according to the latest estimate from the CDC. Two new types of vaccine will debut this flu season, a quadrivalent (four-strain) version containing two influenza B strains offered by three different companies and a cell-based version, made by two companies, including Protein Sciences' FluBlok, which has been recommended for adults up to age 49 who have egg allergies.

Health officials said today that limited quantities of quadrivalent flu vaccine will be available in its first season, and that some people may not be able to find it in their area. According to an earlier report, roughly 25 million doses of the 135 million to 139 million doses manufacturers expect to produce will be the...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on

Copyright

Sunday, October 6, 2013

Claims administrator ordered to halt oil spill claims payments

Company Is Scolded for Mistakes at Fukushima

Saturday, October 5, 2013

Jobs Report Becomes a Casualty of Shutdown

Now the Government Shutdown Is Stopping Blood Drives

Intervening Superseding Event: Turning in Bed Held Not a Bar to Workers' Compensation

New York Second in Nation for Questionable Workers’ Compensation Claims

US data show higher flu vaccine uptake in health workers

Get new posts by email: