Tag: Workers Comp

The Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission ruled Thursday that a judge erred when she affirmed a workplace citation and fine issued to the owner of a Colorado psychiatric hospital.

The commission set aside the decision by former Administrative Law Judge Peggy S. Ball, who had affirmed the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s citation and $11,934 penalty against UHS of Denver Inc., owner of a psychiatric hospital in Littleton, Colorado.

The company was issued a serious violation citation by OSHA after being accused of failing to protect its employees from workplace violence by psychiatric patients.

Judge Ball had noted that UHS did not produce certain financial documents and did not make its chief financial officer available for a deposition. As a result, she ruled the company had not provided sufficient evidence that adopting a list of 10 abatement measures OSHA proposed to protect hospital employees from “physical threats and assaults” by patients would constitute a financial hardship.

The OSHRC ruled that Judge Ball erred in drawing the adverse inference and remanded the case, saying another judge would have to determine whether economic feasibility was established.

A Pennsylvania man injured while trying to break up a fight at a state juvenile detention center where he worked is not entitled to reimbursement for workers compensation litigation costs, a state appeals court ruled Tuesday.

A three-judge panel of the Pennsylvania Commonwealth Court ruled Tuesday in Jeffrey Chamberlin v. Commonwealth of Pennsylvania Workers’ Compensation Appeal Board that the board was right to affirm a workers compensation judge’s decision that denied the counselor reimbursement for his legal costs.

Mr. Chamberlin was injured in 2015 after struggling with two youth detention center residents engaged in a fight. He was approved for workers compensation about two months after the incident and subsequently went out on total disability leave.

Four years later, at the request of the state, a workers compensation judge changed Mr. Chamberlin’s benefits status from total to partial disability due to an impairment rating evaluation by a physician. Mr. Chamberlin appealed the decision, asserting a new arm injury was related to the workplace incident.

The Commonwealth Court affirmed the comp board’s ruling that the additional biceps injury failed to either increase or decrease Mr. Chamberlin’s total disability; that he was not entitled to litigation costs because adding a biceps tenodesis to his work injury description did not confer any financial benefit; and that the independent rating evaluation provisions in Pennsylvania’s Workers’ Compensation Act did not violate his rights under the state constitution due to the court previously ruling on that issue.

Sixty percent of so-called cumulative trauma workers compensation claims involve injuries that progress over time and are indemnity-only, thus involving no medical component, according to a report released Thursday by the Workers’ Compensation Insurance Rating Bureau of California.

Overall, 77% of indemnity cumulative trauma claims involving more than $1,000 in expenses attributed to settling and defending claims, while only 53% of other claims do, WCIRB found in its analysis of claims cumulative trauma claims, which account for about 8% of all claims and 13% of indemnity-only claims. Twenty-seven percent of such injuries are described that “soft tissue” injuries; by far the largest share of cumulative trauma injuries with the remaining nine categories, such as carpal tunnel syndrome and sprains, broken into smaller shares.

The average paid per medical-legal evaluation is more than 20% higher on cumulative trauma claims than other claims over nine years post-report of injury, with a peak at year two, according to WCIRB’s analysis. In addition, there are over 60% more legal evaluations on cumulative trauma claims, which leads to “a significantly higher overall medical-legal paid per claim.” The WCIRB suggested that because cumulative trauma claims are more likely to involve multiple body parts, such claims may require more complex medical-legal evaluations.

On severity, cumulative trauma claims develop higher medical severity starting at 66 months from policy inception and continue to grow faster than non-cumulative trauma claims at later report levels. Cumulative trauma indemnity claims close “consistently more slowly” than other indemnity-only claims, with the largest difference at 18 months from policy inception, when only 20% of cumulative trauma indemnity claims are closed compared to 50% of all other indemnity claims.

Cumulative trauma claims are also more likely to involve mental and behavioral disorders, “leading to multiple evaluations for both physical and psychological conditions,” according to the WCIRB, which found that 8% of indemnity-only cumulative trauma claims involve a psych component, while only 1% of all other indemnity-only claims do.

 

 

 

 

Lawmakers in South Carolina are now considering a fourth piece of legislation addressing post-traumatic stress disorder for first responders; three have already been pre-filed for the 2023 legislative season.

H.B. 3272, filed Thursday and sent to the House Labor, Commerce and Industry Committee, provides requirements for a first responder to file a workers compensation claim for “a stress or mental injury unaccompanied by a physical injury.”

The bill, which is similar to that which was filed with the state Senate in late November, states that the first responder must witness a “(s)ignificant traumatic experience or situation” to qualify, and lists 11 instances that would apply, most of them involving death.

 

 

 

 

 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Thursday submitted its draft of a permanent COVID-19 standard for health care workers, an agency spokeswoman said.

The draft, which was filed with the Office of Management and Budget’s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, is not yet available to the public. OSHA had promised the draft since its COVID-19 emergency temporary standard expired in December 2021.

The agency had published the six-month emergency temporary standard on June 21, 2021, “to protect health care and health care support service workers from occupational exposure to COVID-19 in settings where people with COVID-19 are reasonably expected to be present.”

That standard included masking, testing, record-keeping, and enhanced sanitation and ventilation procedures.

Following an expedited public hearing process earlier this year safety groups and OSHA attorneys have been on the lookout for a standard. 

The National Council for Occupational Safety and Health issued a statement Thursday applauding OSHA’s efforts to develop a permanent standard.

“It’s an important step forward to provide protections against the spread of COVID-19 and other infectious diseases for millions of health care workers who have risked their lives to take care of the rest of us during this pandemic,” said National COSH Co-executive director Jessica E. Martinez in a statement. She called on OSHA to expand the standard, eventually, to all workers.

“Let’s be clear,” she said. “This pandemic is not over, and all exposed workers need protection, not just those who work in health care settings.”

 

 

 

 

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission has vacated a citation issued to a company after a worker fell 105 feet to his death from a crane platform while performing upgrades to a communications tower in Georgia.

The commission found that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration failed to prove all elements necessary to uphold a $15,343 fine against ACrane Rental LLC, which received the penalty after the fatality at a strip mall parking lot in Norcross on March 21, 2019. The case is Secretary of Labor v. ACrane Rental LLC.

The commission, in reversing OSHA, determined that ACrane was not a controlling employer at the time of the accident, and was not the employer of the exposed workers at the job site. ACrane was one of five companies at the construction site on the day of the fatality. 

The commission also determined that OSHA erred in finding that an ACrane supervisor had actual knowledge of the alleged violation at the worksite – the overloading of the crane platform used to lift workers to the communications tower.

 

While cuts, falls and strains make up a large portion of workers compensation claims among restaurants, injuries from a worker’s extremities being crushed, and injuries related to mental stress and fainting are on the rise post-2020, according to an analysis published Wednesday by AmTrust Financial Services Inc.

In studying injuries post-pandemic, comparing 2021 with 2019 as a baseline, AmTrust found that crushing injuries were up 89%; mental stress claims up 71%, the largest jump historically; and fainting claims up 61%. The report did not state costs related to these claims, noting that the typical restaurant injuries — cuts, falls and strains — still remain the costliest injuries among restaurant workers.

The analysis examined 48,486 cut, puncture and/or scrape claims – the most reported – and found that the average cost per claim stood at $1,519. Less common were falls and slips, 37,399 claims, yet costing on average $10,041. Strains were reported in 19,407 claims, costing on average $9,277, according to the report. Slightly less common were burns, with 19,227 claims averaging $3,160 per claim, according to the report.

In analyzing the number of reported injuries each month from 2015 to 2021, AmTrust found that injuries peak in late spring and into the summer – particularly July, which the researchers suggested is due to a seasonal summer staff that has less training, less experience, and is thus more likely to get injured.

January, February, September and November tend to see the lowest number of injuries, AmTrust reported.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited an Arkansas contractor and fined it $287,150 after two workers died from oxygen deprivation after venturing into a sewer at a job site near Oklahoma City.

OSHA said Wednesday that Texarkana, Arkansas-based Belt Construction Inc. did not perform appropriate safety testing prior to an employee climbing into a newly installed sewer manhole to conduct testing on June 14.

The worker ultimately died from a lack of oxygen, and a second worker who went into the sewer to try and rescue the first worker also subsequently died, according to OSHA.

OSHA also cited the contractor for not providing rescue equipment, failing to train workers on confined space entry procedures, and failing to obtain required federal permits.

Belt Construction, which was cited for six serious and two willful violations, has 15 days to contest the citations.

A bill to expand the presumption of compensability for several types of cancers in certain first responders has been introduced in the Virginia General Assembly.

H.B. 1408, introduced Tuesday, would expand the presumption for certain emergency responders who have completed five years of service in their position and have been diagnosed with melanoma, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, bladder cancer or thyroid cancer, according to a summary of the measure.

The presumption would not apply to individuals diagnosed with a qualifying cancer before July 1, 2023.

The workers covered under the bill include volunteer and career firefighters, Department of Emergency Management hazardous materials officers, commercial vehicle enforcement officers and motor carrier safety troopers working for the Virginia State Police, and full-time sworn members of the enforcement division of the Department of Motor Vehicles.

The types of cancers covered under the proposed expansion add to those presumed compensable under current law, which are pancreatic, prostate, rectal, throat, ovarian, breast, colon, brain and testicular.