In rejecting an employee’s attempt to go forward with a lawsuit directly against an employer, the NJ Appellate Division ruled, in an unreported case*, that an employee, in a novel argument, may assert the “violation of public policy” as an allegation.
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Monday, January 8, 2024
Thursday, July 13, 2023
OSHA Cites Main Line Contractor Corp. of Newark NJ for 21 Violations and $333,052 in Penalties
A series of inspections by the U.S. Department of Labor has found a Newark-based construction contractor defying federal safety regulations by exposing employees to more than 20 violations, including potentially deadly falls, at six southern and central New Jersey work sites in early 2023.
Monday, May 22, 2023
United Hospital Supply Corp. faces $498K in penalties after amputation incident
An employee's first day of work at a southern New Jersey manufacturing facility ended tragically when he suffered the amputation of three fingers while operating a press brake without required safety guards, similar to violations cited by federal safety investigators at the facility in 2010 and 2015.
Sunday, July 24, 2022
Federal Joint Study on Workplace Violence Released
The Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) released Indicators of Workplace Violence, 2019, which provides findings on fatal and nonfatal crimes that occurred in the workplace or away from work but over work-related issues. Findings are presented for 13 indicators of workplace violence, using data from five federal data collections.
Monday, May 30, 2022
Dual Employment Status Bars Double Recovery
An employee may have dual employers but ultimately can only receive a single recovery from only one employer for work-related injuries. The “exclusivity doctrine,” permitting a complete recovery of damages against an employer, limits an injured worker’s benefit recovery to the compensation system, barring an intentional tort.
Wednesday, April 13, 2022
Injury Caused by Defeated Machine Guard Results in OSHA Fine of $159,522
An employee working at Crystal Finishing Systems Inc.’s aluminum extrusion facility in Weston was hospitalized with serious injuries after being struck by a puller machine while trying to unjam a piece of aluminum.
Wednesday, March 30, 2022
The Risk of Working in a Factory
Wednesday, November 17, 2021
Amazon Settles with California Over Concealment of COVID Data From Warehouse Workers COVID-19
Historically workers have been denied adequate occupational exposure information, which has led to epidemics of disease/death and lawsuit, including workers' compensation claims. Exposure to the SARS-CoV-2 (Coronavirus) virus has been no exception.
Wednesday, June 9, 2021
The Exclusivity Rule Is Not A Bar to a Discrimination Action
The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled that an employer could be liable under both the Law Against Discrimination Act [LAD] and the Worker's Compensation Act (WCA). Court reasoned that the dual remedies can work in harmony as they are both statutory claims. The Court noted that the common law remedies of the LADs are not prohibited by the WCA since they are statutory in nature. By allowing both claims to go forward, a worker is not limited to the statutory caps for recovery under the Worker's Compensation Act.
Tuesday, April 13, 2021
NJ Supreme Holds Employers Responsible for Workers' Compensation Medical Marijuana Costs
The NJ Supreme has recognized that the workers’ compensation system has a legislative mandate to provide the safest medical care to cure and relieve occupational injuries. The Court acknowledged both state and Federal trends to provide non-addictive and non-fatal pain relief in place of the dangerous opioids.
The intent that embraced the creation and development of the social insurance system has given the Court a rational and logical basis, consistent with public policy, to order medical marijuana for palliative care.
Wednesday, November 11, 2020
Over 46% of High-risk Adults Are Endangered by Workplace Exposures to SARA-CoV2
A recent study published in The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) this week finds that workplace-exposures to SARS-CoV2 endanger, not only the workers but also imperil the lives of their household contacts.
Monday, August 10, 2020
Intentional Tort Claim Barred by the Exclusivity Rule
The New Jersey Workers Compensation Act (WCA), N.J.S.A. 34:15-1 to -146, generally prohibits employees from suing their employers for injuries sustained in workplace accidents. In a recent case the Court probed the boundaries of the "intentional wrong" exception to that general rule.
Thursday, July 23, 2020
Lessons from Asbestos Litigation Apply to COVID Claims
Thursday, December 5, 2019
Better Chemistry Through Regulation
Tuesday, April 23, 2019
When active shooter drills lead to workplace injuries
The United States has one of the highest rates of gun violence in the developed world. Unfortunately the workplace is no sanctuary from this violence.
Tuesday, April 2, 2019
Horseplay Is Not an Intentional Tort
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Medical Treatment is an Exclusive Remedy Not a Reasonable Accommodation
Monday, February 26, 2018
Preventing Occupational Disease: NJ Governor Murphy Supports a Fracking Ban
Thursday, March 10, 2016
NJ Company Fined $52,000 by OSHA for Unprotected Trench
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
Selecting the right surgeon is a big deal
Over the decades since its original enactment 1911, the issue of cost of medical care has come to the forefront. Some states, such as New Jersey, prohibit an employee's free selection of a medical provider. Additionally, some employers and their insurance companies have contractually negotiated a best price fee with medical providers and have an established medical care networks, consequently restricting the employee's free selection.
A recent article authored by Peter Scardino is the chief of surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK) focuses on the need to select the best surgeon in order to obtain the best outcome.
“You can think of surgery as not really that different than golf.” Peter Scardino is the chief of surgery at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center (MSK). He has performed more than 4,000 open radical prostatectomies. “Very good athletes and intelligent people can be wildly different in their ability to drive or chip or putt. I think the same thing’s true in the operating room.”
The difference is that golfers keep score. Andrew Vickers, a biostatistician at MSK, would hear cancer surgeons at the hospital having heated debates about, say, how often they took out a patient’s whole kidney versus just a part of it. “Wait a minute,” he remembers thinking. “Don’t you know this?”
“How come they didn’t know this already?”
In the summer of 2009, he and Scardino teamed up to begin work on a software project, called Amplio (from the Latin for “to improve”), to give surgeons detailed feedback about their performance. The program—still in its early stages but already starting to be shared with other hospitals — started with a simple premise: the only way a surgeon is going to get better is if he knows where he stands.
Vickers likes to put it this way. His brother-in-law is a bond salesman, and you can ask him, How’d you do last week?, and he’ll tell you not just his own numbers, but the numbers for his whole group.
Why should it be any different when lives are in the balance?
Related articles
- After Brief Halt, F.D.A. Allows Sales of Drug for Cancer to Resume (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Racing for the Cure: The Case for More Cancer Reseach Funding (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Lung Cancer Screening Decision Tool (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Spoliation of Evidence: Sanctions Reversed in Employer Fraud Case (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Intentional Fraud (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)
- Is Your Workers' Compensation Check Late? (workers-compensation.blogspot.com)