Court Holds OSHA HazCom Standard Not A Bar To State Failure to Warn Claims

The US Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia has held that The Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s (OSHA) HazCom Standard does not preempt state law, therefore allowing state lawsuits to go forward based on “failure to warn” claims.

The Court dismissed the Petition filed by the American Tort Reform Association for a definitive determination concerning Federal preemption of state court based actions. The case overrules an unpublished NJ Appellate Court decision dismissing a state based claim for “failure to warn.”  Bass v. AirProducts & Chemicals Inc., et al., Docket No. A-4542-03T3, 2006 WL 1419375, May 25, 2006 (N.J. Superior A.D.), NJ Supreme Court denied certification, 907 A.2d 1014, Sept. 8, 2006.

The Court reasoned that the petition for review was, “….much to do about nothing.” The Court held, that while OSHA had no authority to issue an authoritative statement, OSHA could issue an interpretative statement that is not subject to notice and comment rulemaking  under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA) 5 U.S.C. § 553(b).

The HazCom Standard establishes labeling requirements for chemicals used in the workplace. 29 C.F.R. § 1910.1200(a)(2).

American Tort Reform Association v. OSHA, et al., Docket No. 12-1229 (2013 D.C. Cir.)  Decided: December 27, 2013.

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Social Security - Administrative Law Judge Rulings

ALJ Disposition Data
FY 2014 (For Reporting Purposes: 09/28/2013 Through 11/29/2013)
A listing of hearings completion data by name of individual administrative law judges (ALJ) for all ALJs in ODAR. The data includes hearing office name, total dispositions, decisions, allowances, denials and fully favorable or partially favorable decisions.
Click here to down oad the data in PDF format.

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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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McDonalds Kills Site That Advised Employees to Eat Healthy Meals

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

McDonald's had a thoughtful piece of advice for its own employees: If you want to be healthy, avoid fast food. That's what the fast-food outlet posted on its employee resource website McResource Line. The company pulled the site on Wednesday, saying the advice, which a third-party vendor provided, was taken out of context. "Fast foods are quick, reasonably priced and readily available alternatives to home cooking. While convenient and economical for a busy lifestyle, fast foods are typically high in calories, fat, saturated fat, sugar and salt and may put people at risk for becoming overweight," read one posting on the site's diet section, according to CNBC. Another page displayed a large soda, french fries and a hamburger — a meal labeled as an "unhealthy choice." Next to it, the "healthier choice" of a cup of water, a salad and a sandwich. These postings disappeared Wednesday when McDonald's took down the entire website, saying its content was unfairly misrepresented. "A combination of factors has led us to re-evaluate and we've directed the vendor to take down the website," McDonald's wrote in a statement posted on its main website. "Between links to irrelevant or outdated information, along with outside groups taking elements out of context, this created unwarranted scrutiny and inappropriate commentary. None of this helps our McDonald's team members." This is not the first...

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Charts: The Worst Long-Term Unemployment Crisis Since the Depression

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

Officially, the Great Recession of 2007 ended in June 2009. Yet the economic downturn remains in full effect for millions of Americans, particularly the nearly 40 percent of the unemployed who have been looking for work for six months or more. In less than a week, emergency federal unemployment benefits for 1.3 million of these jobless Americans are set to run out. Proponents of ending the benefits argue that the economy is expanding and that the benefits prevent people from finding work. "You get out of a recession by encouraging employment not encouraging unemployment," according to Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who opposes extending benefits. However, the data shows that while corporate America has bounced back, it is not restoring all the jobs it shed when the economy tanked five years ago. Currently, nearly 11 million Americans are unemployed. The unemployment rate stands at 7 percent. Both of those stats are improvements from a little more than four years ago, when the post-recession jobless rate peaked at 10 percent and more than 15 million people were out of work. However, there currently are more than 4 million Americans who have been unemployed for six months or longer. Not since the Great Depression has the United States experienced such massive and persistent long-term unemployment. Overall, the long-term unemployed (those with out a job for six months or longer) make up nearly 40 percent of all the jobless. Long-term unemployment has not affected...

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10 Reasons That Long-Term Unemployment Is a National Catastrophe

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

Unemployment is bad. Obviously long-term unemployment is worse. But it's not just a little worse, it's horrifically worse. As a companion to our eight charts that describe the problem, here are the top ten reasons why long-term unemployment is such a national catastrophe: It's way higher than it's ever been before. When the headline unemployment rate peaked in 2010, it was actually a bit lower than the peak during the 1980 recession and only a point higher than the 1973 recession. As bad as it was, it was something we'd faced before. But the long-term unemployment rate is a whole different story. It peaked at a rate nearly double the worst we'd ever seen in the past, and it's been coming down only slowly ever since. It's widespread. There's a common belief that long-term unemployment mostly affects older workers and only in certain industries. In fact, with the exception of the construction industry, which was hurt especially badly during the 2007-08 recession, "the long-term unemployed are fairly evenly distributed across the age and industry spectrum." It's brutal. Obviously long-term unemployment produces a sharp loss of income, with all the stress that entails. But it does more. It produces deep distress, worse mental and physical health, higher mortality rates, hampers children’s educational progress, and lowers their future earnings. Megan McArdle summarizes the research findings this way: "Short of death or a debilitating terminal disease,...

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That ringing isn’t Christmas bells: Tinnitus symptoms, prevention

Today's post was shared by NIOSH Transportation and comes from www.overdriveonline.com

Tinnitus is the medical term for “hearing” noises in your ears when there is no outside source of the sounds. The noises you hear can be soft or loud. They may sound like ringing, blowing, roaring, buzzing, hissing, humming, whistling or sizzling. They can be persistent and never-ending or intermittent. Hearing loss is common in the trucking industry, especially for the drivers who have been on the road for more than ten years. While the newer trucks are a lot quieter — in-cab noise levels are about half what they were just fifteen years ago — protecting your hearing is one of the most effective ways to prevent tinnitus. Avoiding loud noises and wearing hearing protection when appropriate is recommended by the Mayo Clinic website. However, with 265 known medications on the market that report tinnitus as a possible side effect, there are literally hundreds of reasons why someone may experience symptoms. Behind medication side effects, a common cause of tinnitus is inner ear cell damage. Tiny, delicate hairs in your inner ear move in relation to the pressure of sound waves. This triggers ear cells to release an electrical signal through a nerve from your ear (auditory nerve) to your brain. Your brain interprets these signals as sound. If the hairs inside your inner ear are bent or broken, they can “leak” random electrical impulses to your brain, causing tinnitus. The three most common causes of inner ear cell damage are: age-related...

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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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Arthroscopic Partial Meniscectomy versus Sham Surgery for a Degenerative Meniscal Tear

Today's post was shared by NEJM and comes from www.nejm.org

Background Arthroscopic partial meniscectomy is one of the most common orthopedic procedures, yet rigorous evidence of its efficacy is lacking. Methods We conducted a multicenter, randomized, double-blind, sham-controlled trial in 146 patients 35 to 65 years of age who had knee symptoms consistent with a degenerative medial meniscus tear and no knee osteoarthritis. Patients were randomly assigned to arthroscopic partial meniscectomy or sham surgery. The primary outcomes were changes in the Lysholm and Western Ontario Meniscal Evaluation Tool (WOMET) scores (each ranging from 0 to 100, with lower scores indicating more severe symptoms) and in knee pain after exercise (rated on a scale from 0 to 10, with 0 denoting no pain) at 12 months after the procedure. Results In the intention-to-treat analysis, there were no significant between-group differences in the change from baseline to 12 months in any primary outcome. The mean changes (improvements) in the primary outcome measures were as follows: Lysholm score, 21.7 points in the partial-meniscectomy group as compared with 23.3 points in the sham-surgery group (between-group difference, −1.6 points; 95% confidence interval [CI], −7.2 to 4.0); WOMET score, 24.6 and 27.1 points, respectively (between-group difference, −2.5 points; 95% CI, −9.2 to 4.1); and score for knee pain after exercise, 3.1 and 3.3 points, respectively (between-group difference, −0.1; 95% CI, −0.9 to 0.7). There were no...

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