Thursday, March 3, 2016
Property Developer Pleads Guilty To Exposing Workers To Asbestos During Removal Operations
U.S. Attorney William J. Hochul, Jr., in Rochester, NY, announced today that Anastasios “Taso” Kolokouris, 32, of Avon, NY, pleaded guilty to violating the Clean Air Act asbestos work practice standards involving asbestos removal and disturbance before Chief U.S. District Judge Frank P. Geraci. The charge carries a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a $250,000 fine.
Tuesday, March 1, 2016
OSHA Fines NJ Contractor For Hanger Collapse at Newark Airport
OSHA fines CATCO Demolition Services $49K for the violation
Employer name: Catanzaro & Sons Enterprise, doing business as CATCO Demolition Services
10 Gregory Drive, Montville, New Jersey
10 Gregory Drive, Montville, New Jersey
Site: Newark Liberty International Airport, 14 Brewster Road, Newark, New Jersey
Citations issued: On Feb. 24, 2016, the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration ’s Parsippany Area Office issued a citation for one willful violation.
Investigation findings: OSHA’s inspection began Sept. 9, 2015 after United Airlines Hanger No. 14 at Newark Liberty International Airport collapsed during demolition. Inspectors determined CATCO Demolition Services deviated from an approved demolition plan and made unapproved cuts to several I-beams, weakening the structural members of the hangar as employees worked inside the hangar. OSHA cited CATCO for this hazard.
The employer has 15 business days from receipt of the citation and proposed penalty to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA’s area director, or contest the findings before the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
Proposed penalty: $49,000
Quote: “By not following the approved demolition plan, CATCO Demolition Services left its employees vulnerable to unnecessary risk,” said Kris Hoffman, director of OSHA’s Parsippany Area Office. “Employers must provide employees with a safe working environment; anything less than that is unacceptable.”
View the citations: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/CatanzaroandSons_1091006.pdf*.
Friday, February 26, 2016
OSHA Fine NJ Contractor $43,000 for Fall Hazards Following Roofer's Death
OSHA finds Middlesex contractor exposed workers to fall hazards after investigation of roofer's death at Parsippany jobsite S&S Roofing Inc., cited 13 times for similar violations
Employers name: S&S Roofing Inc., 2 Self Blvd., Carteret, New Jersey
Inspection site: 71 Walsh Drive, Parsippany, New Jersey
Citations issued: On Feb. 17, 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations for one repeat and three serious violations.
Investigation findings: OSHA opened an investigation on Aug. 24, 2015 after receiving a referral from the Parsippany Police Department after a worker fell from the roof of a warehouse. The investigation was also conducted under the agency's local emphasis program for falls in construction.
OSHA inspectors found that S&S Roofing failed to provide workers with the proper fall protection, resulting in one repeat violation. The company was cited for a similar repeat violation in 2011, and has been cited 10 times since 2000 for comparable offenses.
The investigation determined that the victim who fell was using a manually operated roof hoist to lower his tool bags to the ground that caused the hoist to tip and go over the edge of the roof. As it tipped, the hoist's boom hit the man and he fell over the roof's edge to the pavement approximately 25 feet below. The victim succumbed to his injuries, dying six days later.
Proposed penalties: $43,080
Quote: "This tragic incident and unnecessary loss of a life could have been prevented had S&S Roofing properly protected its workers against falls, the leading cause of death in the construction industry," said Kris Hoffman, director of OSHA's Parsippany Area Office. "Compounding the tragedy, the hoist's manufacturer warns: ‘Never use roof process materials as counterweight.' We determined S&S Roofing regularly used roofing materials to counterweight the hoist regardless of the warning. Workers should not have to risk their lives needlessly for the sake of a paycheck."
View the citations: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/S-and-S_Roofing_Inc_1088219_0217_16.pdf*
Employers name: S&S Roofing Inc., 2 Self Blvd., Carteret, New Jersey
Inspection site: 71 Walsh Drive, Parsippany, New Jersey
Citations issued: On Feb. 17, 2016, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations for one repeat and three serious violations.
Investigation findings: OSHA opened an investigation on Aug. 24, 2015 after receiving a referral from the Parsippany Police Department after a worker fell from the roof of a warehouse. The investigation was also conducted under the agency's local emphasis program for falls in construction.
OSHA inspectors found that S&S Roofing failed to provide workers with the proper fall protection, resulting in one repeat violation. The company was cited for a similar repeat violation in 2011, and has been cited 10 times since 2000 for comparable offenses.
The investigation determined that the victim who fell was using a manually operated roof hoist to lower his tool bags to the ground that caused the hoist to tip and go over the edge of the roof. As it tipped, the hoist's boom hit the man and he fell over the roof's edge to the pavement approximately 25 feet below. The victim succumbed to his injuries, dying six days later.
Proposed penalties: $43,080
Quote: "This tragic incident and unnecessary loss of a life could have been prevented had S&S Roofing properly protected its workers against falls, the leading cause of death in the construction industry," said Kris Hoffman, director of OSHA's Parsippany Area Office. "Compounding the tragedy, the hoist's manufacturer warns: ‘Never use roof process materials as counterweight.' We determined S&S Roofing regularly used roofing materials to counterweight the hoist regardless of the warning. Workers should not have to risk their lives needlessly for the sake of a paycheck."
View the citations: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/S-and-S_Roofing_Inc_1088219_0217_16.pdf*
Wednesday, February 24, 2016
Breast Cancer: California Discriminates Against Women
The California Applicants’ Attorneys Association (CAAA) joined Assemblywoman Lorena Gonzalez (D-San Diego) for the first ever Women in the Workplace Day at the State Capitol. The day was centered around Governor Brown’s veto of the CAAA sponsored AB 305 (Gonzalez, 2015), which sought to ensure that women are not compensated less than men for identical work injuries.
NJ Corrections Officers Seeks Benefits Above Workers’ Compensation
Legislation now pending before the NJ State Assembly (A2347) would establish a compensation program for State corrections officers, juvenile corrections officers, and juvenile detention officers who suffer bodily injury as the result of a riot or assault by the inmates or detainees under their custody and care. The bill also establishes a compensation program for parole officers who suffer bodily injury as the result of an assault committed by an adult or juvenile parolee under their supervision.
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
The State of Medical Care in California’s Workers’ Compensation System
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| Katherine Roe |
Todays' guest post is authored by Katie Roe* of the California Bar and was originally published at rivercityattorneys.com/blog (Fraulob & Brown).
When you’re injured at work, you expect that your employer’s insurance carrier will dutifully provide you with proper medical treatment for your injury. After all, future medical care is one of the “benefits” injured workers are entitled to in California. Denial of medical treatment is the number one frustration we hear from our clients on a daily basis.
What injured workers quickly discover is that their medical treatment is strictly controlled by the insurance carrier and their medical fate is in the hands of a doctor who has never treated them and may not even have their complete medical records. This process is called Utilization Review (UR). Under UR an outside physician gets to decide whether or not the insurance company should authorize the medical treatment prescribed by your primary treating physician. This doctor doesn’t even have to be licensed in California.
If the medical treatment prescribed by your physician is denied, your only recourse is to appeal the decision to an Independent Medical Reviewed (IMR). In California, MAXIMUS is the company contracted to conduct IMR reviews. Like UR doctors, the IMR doctor deciding your fate, has never met you or treated you and does not need to be licensed in California. In fact, their identity is protected. If your medical treatment is denied by UR, your chances of IMR overturning the decision are not good. California Workers’ Compensation Institute, an insurance research group, found that 91% of IMR decisions uphold the UR denial. If the treatment is denied by IMR, absent a change in circumstances, the denial will be in effect for one year.
While an injured worker has the right to appeal an IMR determination to the Workers’ Compensation Appeals Board, the only legal bases on which to appeal are fraud, conflict of interest, or mistake of fact. However, even if your appeal is successful the WCAB still cannot overturn the IMR doctor’s decision. If an appeal is granted, the remedy is referral to a different IMR for another review. Yes, you read that right, your award is to go through the IMR process again!
Many injured workers end up seeking treatment for their work related injuries through private insurance, Medicare or Medi-Cal. A study by J. Paul Leigh, a health economist at the University of California, Davis, estimated that only 1/3 of necessary medical treatment and lost wages is being paid for by workers’ compensation insurers.
The lack of adequate medical care for injured workers today is the result of Senate Bill 863, which was passed on August 1, 2012 and signed into law by Governor Brown on September 18, 2012. This law was the result of lobbying by big businesses and insurance companies, who have influence over the State Legislature and the Governor of California. We remind our clients that you also have a political voice. We recommend you go to Voters Injured at Work (www.viaw.org) for information on how to become involved with fixing this broken system.
To read more about the dismal state of medical treatment for injured workers all over America I encourage you to read Insult to Injury by Michael Grabell athttps://www.propublica.org/article/the-demolition-of-workers-compensation.
*Katherine Roe is originally from the San Francisco Bay Area. She attended University of St. Thomas, Saint Paul Minnesota for her undergraduate degree in Sociology with a minor in Criminal Justice. She earned her Master in Public Administration from University of Notre Dame de Namur, Belmont, CA. Katie graduated from University of the Pacific McGeorge School of Law in Sacramento where she received the Witkin Award for Health Law and Elder Law Clinic. She is a practicing attorney in the areas of Workers’ Compensation Law, Social Security Disability and Elder Law, including estate planning with wills, trusts, deeds, powers of attorney and health care directives.
While in college, Katie tutored grade school and high school students in low-income neighborhoods in Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN and interned with the Oakdale, MN Police Department.
During law school, Katie interned with Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, Human Rights Fair Housing Commission and the California Department of Insurance. While at McGeorge, she worked in the Elder and Health Law Clinic where she handled Medicare appeals, elder abuse cases, restraining orders, wills, trusts, consumer protection, special needs trusts, and powers of attorney.
While the Clinical Fellow at McGeorge she received the Cohn Sisters’ Scholarship for Patient Advocacy.
While in college, Katie tutored grade school and high school students in low-income neighborhoods in Saint Paul and Minneapolis, MN and interned with the Oakdale, MN Police Department.
During law school, Katie interned with Legal Aid Society of San Mateo County, Human Rights Fair Housing Commission and the California Department of Insurance. While at McGeorge, she worked in the Elder and Health Law Clinic where she handled Medicare appeals, elder abuse cases, restraining orders, wills, trusts, consumer protection, special needs trusts, and powers of attorney.
While the Clinical Fellow at McGeorge she received the Cohn Sisters’ Scholarship for Patient Advocacy.
Thursday, February 11, 2016
OSHA finds Elan Chemical of Newark NJ put employees at-risk $72,100 in fines
OSHA finds Newark NJ manufacturer put employees at-risk in its handling of dangerous chemicals Elan Chemical Co. issued 17 citations, faces $72,100 in fines.
Employer name: Elan Chemical Company Inc., 268 Doremus Ave., Newark, New Jersey
Citations issued: On Feb. 4, 2016, The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations for 17 serious safety and health violations.
Investigation findings: OSHA initiated an inspection on Aug. 4, 2015, under its national emphasis program focused on chemical manufacturers. Inspectors found deficiencies in the employer's equipment process safety information, process hazard analysis, written operating procedures, contractor safety, equipment inspection and tesging along with management of process changes, resulting in the citations.
Proposed penalties: $72,100
"The violations identified in this inspection create a hazardous environment for the plant's workers," said Kris Hoffman, director of OSHA's Parsippany Area Office. "This facility uses more than 10,000 pounds of ethyl chloride, a highly-flammable liquefied gas. The company's failure to comply with OSHA's Process Safety Management standard could result in a chemical release, as well as a serious fire or explosion."
View the citations: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/ElanChemical1082421.pdf*
The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA's area director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
Employer name: Elan Chemical Company Inc., 268 Doremus Ave., Newark, New Jersey
Citations issued: On Feb. 4, 2016, The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued citations for 17 serious safety and health violations.
Investigation findings: OSHA initiated an inspection on Aug. 4, 2015, under its national emphasis program focused on chemical manufacturers. Inspectors found deficiencies in the employer's equipment process safety information, process hazard analysis, written operating procedures, contractor safety, equipment inspection and tesging along with management of process changes, resulting in the citations.
Proposed penalties: $72,100
"The violations identified in this inspection create a hazardous environment for the plant's workers," said Kris Hoffman, director of OSHA's Parsippany Area Office. "This facility uses more than 10,000 pounds of ethyl chloride, a highly-flammable liquefied gas. The company's failure to comply with OSHA's Process Safety Management standard could result in a chemical release, as well as a serious fire or explosion."
View the citations: http://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/ElanChemical1082421.pdf*
The company has 15 business days from receipt of its citations and penalties to comply, request an informal conference with OSHA's area director, or contest the findings before the independent Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.
….
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.
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