Copyright

(c) 2010-2024 Jon L Gelman, All Rights Reserved.

Wednesday, October 15, 2014

Against Rules, Dallas Worker With Ebola Boarded Plane

Yet another health worker has contracted Ebola. As President Obama abruptly cancelled travel plans to hold a special meeting about the potential fatal epidemic in the US, the question remains open as to whether the workers' compensation system is able to handle an outbreak in the US. This post is shared from nytimes.com





DALLAS — A second nurse at a hospital here tested positive for Ebola on Wednesday, the third case of disease confirmed in Dallas in the span of 15 days and the first to heighten fears far beyond the city.

The nurse, Amber Joy Vinson, 29, took a flight earlier this week from Ohio to Texas, a trip that federal health officials said should not have been taken.

Ms. Vinson was part of the medical team at Texas Health Presbyterian Hospital that cared for the Ebola victim Thomas Eric Duncan after he was admitted on Sept. 28 and put in isolation.

“Because at that point she was in a group of individuals known to have exposure to Ebola, she should not have traveled on a commercial airline,” Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, director of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Wednesday. “The C.D.C. guidance in this setting outlines the need for what is called ‘controlled movement.’ That can include a charter plane, that can include a car, but it does not include public transport.”

Though she traveled on Monday, the day before she reported symptoms on Tuesday, Ms. Vinson was among a group of workers at Presbyterian who were being monitored after the diagnosis on Sunday of the first nurse, Nina Pham, 26. Although Ms. Vinson’s temperature did not meet the fever threshold of 100.4, she reported to health officials that her temperature was 99.5.

Because of the proximity in time between the evening flight Monday and her first report of...


[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Related articles
Posted by at

Women must ask for raises if we are to close the pay gap

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from www.washingtonpost.com

In this Tuesday, Sept. 30, 2014 file photo, Microsoft Chief Executive Officer Satya Nadella speaks to students in New Delhi. On Thursday, Oct. 9, 2014, Nadella spoke at an event for women in computing held in Phoenix, saying women don't need to ask for a raise. They should just trust the system. He was asked to give his advice to women who are uncomfortable requesting a raise. (Manish Swarup/AP)

Don’t ask. Just trust that the system will reward you for your compliance.

That is the message Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella delivered last week, when prodded for advice to give women who are reluctant to request raises.

“It’s not really about asking for the raise but knowing and having faith that the system will actually give you the right raises as you go along,” said Nadella.

“Because that’s good karma,” he continued, shoving his foot deeper down his esophagus. “It’ll come back because somebody’s going to know, ‘That’s the kind of person that I want to trust. That’s the kind of person that I want to really give more responsibility to.’ ”

Again, this was advice to women, who earn less than men in almost every occupation on Earth. Also, such advice was delivered at a conference for women in tech, an industry in which, for many years, the biggest employers illegally conspired to depress employee pay. Sure sounds like a system workers can trust.

Three basic take-aways about...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on
Tembow
Posted by at

Employee vs. Independent Contractor: Can You Tell the Difference?

Today's post is shared from businesslawnews.com
State and federal regulators are increasingly acting to combat worker misclassification. Before using independent contractors, it is imperative to verify that they are not actually employees. The issue is legal in nature so the legal principals must be thoroughly considered and applied. Mistakes, no matter how innocent, can result in costly lawsuits and significant legal penalties.
As we have previously discussed on Scarinci Hollenbeck’s Business Law News, worker misclassification occurs when a bona fide, common law employee is classified to be an “independent contractor.” In some cases, worker misclassification is intentional to avoid tax withholding, overtime pay and insurance requirements such as Workers Compensation and Unemployment Insurance. Sometimes it occurs simply because the employer did not properly understand the law.
To aid the analysis, the Department of Labor (DOL) recently published a revised factsheet on worker misclassification. As the DOL highlights, an employment agreement stating that a worker is an independent contractor hold very little weight, if any. Rather, the actual nature of the working relationship is determinative. Over 25 states also apply the “ABC” test which is even more difficult to overcome (as many prominent trucking companies have been learning in recent court cases).
Below are several key factors that are generally considered when determining whether an employment relationship exists:
[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on
Tembow
Related articles
Posted by at

Benzene Exposure Claim: Court Dismisses Alleged Fatal Multiple Myeloma

A NJ Judge of Compensation recently dismissed a fatal claim for dependency benefits arising out of an alleged exposure to benzene. The decedent worked as laboratory technician from 1998 through 1998 in a quality control laboratory where he worked with liquid chemicals such as "benzene." The decision provides is primer on trial preparation.

The Court ruled that even though a de bene esse deposition was taken of the employee, the deposition was lacking as to proof of adequate and sufficient exposure:

"...The judge noted that decedent did not testify how many times he worked with benzene, whether he ever spilled this chemical, or the number of times he may have smelled it. Decedent never testified he was exposed to benzene the 100 to 150 times a year necessary, according to petitioner's expert, to become a causal factor for his multiple myeloma. Decedent's “blood tests[,] taken after his alleged exposure from 1977 to 1982, ... [showed] no evidence of benzene exposure presenting itself.”Under these circumstances, the judge concluded that decedent did not prove “sufficient exposure to benzene” to have caused his multiple myeloma.

During the trial the Court did not permit the wife to testify as to the circumstance of the on the job exposure:

"We also reject petitioner's argument that the judge erred in not permitting her to testify concerning decedent's job duties. Petitioner testified in order to establish that she qualified as decedent's dependent for purposes of filing a dependency claim. During her testimony, petitioner stated that she knew decedent “worked in the chemical department. That's the only thing I know.”She was not sure
what labs he worked in during his employment with respondent. Respondent objected to this testimony and the judge ruled that petitioner's testimony should be limited to whether she was dependent upon decedent for purposes of pursuing her claim.

Additional incomplete discovery responses by the employer was not an error for reversal on appeal since the petitioner's attorney did not seek enforcement sanction at the trial level.

"....petitioner argues respondent failed to answer certain interrogatories. However, N.J.A.C. 12:235–3.7(b) requires that discovery be completed within 180 days from the filing of the respondent's answer. Respondent filed its answer on July 31, 2009, but petitioner did not file her motion seeking to suppress respondent's defenses until February 23, 2011, well after the expiration of the discovery
period. Moreover, in opposition to plaintiff's motion, respondent certified that it provided petitioner with all of the documentation in its possession concerning decedent, including his personnel file. We therefore conclude that this argument lacks merit.

Hallquist v. E.I. DuPont De Nemours, 2014 WL 5048950 (N.J.Super.A.D.) Decided October 10, 2014

….
Jon L. Gelman of Wayne NJ is the author of NJ Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters) and co-author of the national treatise, Modern Workers’ Compensation Law (West-Thompson-Reuters). 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.
Related articles
Posted by at

Global Handwashing Day — October 15, 2014

The 7th annual Global Handwashing Day will be observed October 15, 2014. This observance increases awareness and understanding of handwashing with soap as an effective and affordable way to prevent disease around the world.

Handwashing with soap has an important role to play in child survival and health. Approximately 2.2 million children aged <5 years die each year from diarrheal diseases and pneumonia, the top two causes of death among young children globally (1). Handwashing with soap can reduce the incidence of diarrhea among children aged <5 years by 30% (2) and the incidence of respiratory infections by 21% (3).

Although persons around the world clean their hands with water, few use soap to wash their hands. Washing hands with soap removes bacteria much more effectively (4).

Additional information on Global Handwashing Day is available from CDC at http://www.cdc.gov/features/globalhandwashing. General handwashing information is available from at http://www.cdc.gov/handwashing. Information on water-related hygiene is available athttp://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/hygiene/index.html.

References
Liu L, Johnson HL, et al.; Child Health Epidemiology Reference Group of WHO and UNICEF. Global, regional, and national causes of child mortality: an updated systematic analysis for 2010 with time trends since 2000. Lancet 2012;379:2151–61.
Ejemot RI, Ehiri JE, Meremikwu MM, Critchley JA. Hand washing for preventing diarrhoea. Cochrane Database Syst Rev 2008;(1):CD004265.
Aiello AE, Coulborn RM, Perez V, Larson EL. Effect of hand hygiene on infectious disease risk in the community setting: a meta-analysis. Am J Public Health 2008;98:1372–81.
Burton M, Cobb E, Donachie P, Judah G, Curtis V, Schmidt WP. The effect of handwashing with water or soap on bacterial contamination of hands. Int J Environ Res Public Health 2011;8:97–104.

Related articles

Posted by at

Monday, October 13, 2014

Dallas Nurse Contracts Ebola Virus, Elevating Response and Anxiety

Today's post was shared by Steven Greenhouse and comes from mobile.nytimes.com

DALLAS — A nurse here became the first person to contract Ebola within the United States, prompting local, state and federal officials who had settled into a choreographed response to scramble on Sunday to solve the mystery of how she became infected, despite wearing protective gear, and to monitor additional people possibly at risk.

The news further stoked fears of health care workers across the country, many of whom have grown increasingly anxious about having to handle Ebola cases. The confirmation on Sunday of the second Ebola case in Dallas — four days after the death on Wednesday of the first patient, Thomas Eric Duncan, 42, a Liberian who arrived in this country in September — opened a new and more frightening chapter in the unfolding public health drama.

While the new Ebola patient was not publicly identified, officials said that she was a nurse who had helped treat Mr. Duncan at a hospital here and that she may have violated safety protocols. It was the first confirmed instance of Ebola being transmitted in this country. Officials expanded the pool of people they had been monitoring, because the nurse had not been among the 48 health care workers, relatives of Mr. Duncan and others whom they were evaluating daily.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that health officials look more closely at the protective gear that nurses, doctors and hospital assistants use when treating Ebola patients. It also, for the first time,...

[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on
Tembow
Posted by at

Formularies in the News

Today's guest post is by The Hon. David Langham who is the Deputy Chief Judge of Compensation Claims for the Florida Office of Judges of Compensation Claims and Division of Administrative Hearings flojcc.blogspot.com
The California Workers' Compensation Institute (CWCI) released their study of controlling pharmaceuticals on October 6, 2014. They acknowledge that Washington and Texas have each implemented drug formularies, and have enjoyed cost savings as a result. The complete report is here. Their data helps with the question of whether a formulary might be part of the solution elsewhere, California in particular.
Formulary restrictions are not new. Texas enacted legislation in 2005 that led to the deployment of its formulary. The results have been remarkable. Prescription volume has dropped and the cost of "non-formulary drugs" decreased by 80% according to the Workers' Compensation Research Institute. I summarized some of the WCRI findings in a June 2014 post.
Another interesting point on closed formularies is the control they afford regarding specific medications or potentially types of medication. The Texas experience with Zohydro, and its recent approval by the FDA is discussed in a December 2013 post. Essentially, while others have wondered about the effect of "heroin in a pill," Texas simply did not add it to their formulary, and that is that. For a doctor to prescribe it in a Texas Comp case is not impossible, but it will require paperwork and...
[Click here to see the rest of this post]

Found on
Tembow
Related articles
Posted by at
Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)