Tag: Workers Comp

The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division said Thursday that it fined a Medford-based roofing contractor $103,438 for repeatedly exposing workers to dangerous fall hazards.

The division said it cited JAM Construction Inc. after investigators inspecting a job site in Central Point found employees installing a roof without adequate fall protection.

The company violated a state rule that requires employers to ensure that fall protection systems are implemented in cases where employees are exposed to fall hazards of six feet or more, according to the division.

In this case, employees were found exposed to falls of up to 13 feet.

The division cited JAM Construction for one “repeat” violation and for one “other-than-serious” violation. The latter related to a failure to provide documentation showing that employees had received fall protection training.

In Oregon, cited employers have 30 calendar days to appeal workplace safety citations. 

In this case, the division said that the company corrected the fall protection violation following the inspection.  

 

Acting New Jersey Gov. Nicholas Scutari, who also maintains an active personal injury and workers compensation law firm, signed a bill Thursday that raises the attorney fee cap in litigated workers comp cases.

Acting Gov. Scutari signed S 2822/A 3986 after months of inaction by Gov. Phil Murphy, who had relinquished his gubernatorial duties while attending the Democratic National Convention.

The bill raises the contingency fee for attorneys representing injured workers from 20% to 25%. The original cap had been established in 1927.

The bill ensures “fair wages” for attorneys who work hard representing injured workers, Acting Gov. Scutari said in a statement.

“Today’s legislation makes a meaningful adjustment to the contingency attorney fee cap, ensuring fair compensation for attorneys and providing workers with the accessible, quality legal representation they deserve,” the statement reads.

Democratic State Sen. Joseph Lagana, one of the bill’s prime sponsors, said the fee cap increase “will allow for more flexibility in the service of their (attorneys’) clients and allow for better and more comprehensive representation.”  

 

 

 

The California Department of Industrial Relations and its Division of Occupational Safety and Health announced plans Thursday to hire more investigators to seek “egregious” workplace safety violators and to refer more employers for criminal prosecution.

Plans to bolster recruitment for the unit that is responsible for investigations related to the most serious workplace injuries, including death, is in line with efforts to “tackle more cases and ensure that the most negligent of employers are held accountable,” Cal/OSHA said in a statement.

While recruitment is underway for several leadership positions with the Cal/OSHA’s Bureau of Investigations, efforts began in July, when nine positions were filled in satellite offices throughout the state, including a new chief investigator and eight investigative staff.

 

 

Exposure to dust and other particles may put construction workers at an increased risk of developing chronic kidney disease, according to a study publicized on Wednesday.

Researchers at the University of Gothenburg found that Swedish construction workers studied over five decades had a 15% higher risk of developing chronic kidney disease.

The researchers noted that other recent expert studies showed that outdoor air pollution particles from sources such as industry and vehicle exhaust also increased the odds of developing chronic kidney disease.

The study, which was published in the journal Occupational and Environmental Medicine, examined data from more than 280,000 construction workers who participated in health surveys between 1971 and 1993.

The researchers said that the risk could be mitigated by developing improvements to workplace emissions and emphasizing to construction workers the importance of using personal protective equipment.

“Considering the substantial disease burden and costly treatment of CKD, this has large implications for public health and warrants further efforts to reduce occupational and ambient particle exposure,” the researchers wrote.

They next plan to study the link between dust and particle exposure and chronic kidney disease in other professional groups.

A former parking meter reader in Washington state has pleaded guilty to workers compensation fraud after it was discovered that she lived with six dogs, even though she claimed she would faint at the sight of a canine following a workplace dog attack.

The employee, who worked for the Pacific County Public Utility District, claimed she developed post-traumatic stress disorder after a dog bit her on the arm in 2007, according to the Washington Department of Labor & Industries, which announced the guilty plea Wednesday.

During the next several years, the woman claimed she was unable to work because she would pass out at the mere sight of a dog. She collected more than $162,000 in wage-replacement workers compensation benefits between September 2016 and October 2019.

“This is clearly a case of someone abusing the workers’ comp system,” Celeste Monahan, assistant director of L&I’s Fraud Prevention and Labor Standards division, said in a statement.

The woman pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree attempted theft of state workers compensation benefits, and a judge sentenced her to 30 days in jail but permitted the sentence to be carried out at home under electronic monitoring.

L&I started investigating the woman in 2018 after a claim manager suspected fraud.

An inspector went to the home, posing as someone interested in an online sale, and found the woman had dogs “swarming around her – and she didn’t faint or look scared,” according to an L&I statement.

 

 

The New York City Transit Authority was entitled to a special hearing to determine whether a multi-million-dollar jury award for a paralyzed employee could have been offset by insurance coverage under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

In a case of first impression, the New York Supreme Court’s Appellate Division ruled Wednesday that a trial court should have granted the transit authority a collateral source hearing to determine whether a $110 million jury award for Robert Liciaga could be offset by an ACA policy.

Mr. Liciaga was paralyzed after being struck on the back by a railroad tie during a 2016 project to replace a section of railroad track in Brooklyn. A jury said the transit authority’s negligence caused the accident and it found the agency liable for the injury. 

The jury awarded Mr. Liciaga $9 million for past pain and suffering, $60 million for future pain and suffering, $1.17 million for past medical expenses and $40 million for future medical expenses.

The transit authority argued the award was excessive, and that it should have been granted a hearing to determine whether Mr. Liciaga’s future medical expenses could be offset by an ACA policy.  

The appeals court said the trial court erred in denying the hearing request, and that the defendants are entitled to show that an ACA policy could pay for future medical treatment “in a manner that would reduce his future medical expenses by millions of dollars.” 

 

 

 

ORLANDO, Florida — Robust employee wellness programs can have an impact on workers compensation claim outcomes, according to panelists speaking Wednesday at the Workers Compensation Educational Conference.

Increasingly, human resources professionals are being called to assist with comp claims, particularly in the mental health space by enlisting the help of an employee assistance program, said Carmen Penney, Collegedale, Tennessee-based manager of workers compensation for the transportation company US Xpress Inc.

“In my role, I’m dealing with a truck driver on a terrible day; they may have been in a motor vehicle accident and there could have been catastrophic things happen,” she said. “And so, for us, a lot of times it is the EAP (that provides) somebody that is just there and can listen and help that person.”

Marsha Wood, Chattanooga, Tennessee-based director of environmental, health and safety, occupational health and medical management for Rivian Automotive Inc., an electric vehicle manufacturer, said wellness programs that provide mental health services have been proven essential for her company.

Rivian is in the process of hiring its second licensed clinical social worker to work in its on-site clinic, she said, adding that there’s a waiting list for workers who want to talk. She said she believes improved services for mental wellbeing can help prevent injuries. And when they occur, having programs in place can “help the life of your claim directly.”

“Especially in the comp realm, you have employees that may be out on loss time, and they’re making less wages; their daily lives are affected financially and they’re stressed out,” she said. “That financial stress alone on wellbeing can be very critical to the recovery. And I’ve seen cases where that has gone severely wrong not by what the employer is doing inappropriately but more about what the patient is going through. The quicker we can identify that… we can get them connected to employee programs and just some routine intervention techniques.”

 

 

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