Tag: Workers Comp

ICW Group Insurance Cos. announced Thursday it has named Paul Zamora chief underwriting officer, a new position.

Mr. Zamora has overseen the San Diego-based insurer’s workers compensation underwriting business for nearly two decades, most recently as senior vice president.

He will lead workers comp underwriting and risk management teams.

 

 

 

 

 

A divided Mississippi Court of Appeals on Tuesday ruled that a traveling employee was not entitled to benefits for his alleged injuries from a car accident that happened returning from an unauthorized trip home.

Willie Rambo was working for Kelly Natural Gas Pipelines LLC in February 2020 when he was part of a crew assigned to a job site in Greenwood, Mississippi, while living more than 140 miles away in Bay Springs, Mississippi, according to Rambo v. Kelly Natural Gas Pipelines LLC.

During the workweek, he stayed at a motel paid for by his employer. Mr. Rambo rode with his foreman and another worker, as they also lived in Bay Springs. While the foreman had been assigned a company truck, it was Mr. Rambo who usually drove the vehicle and would park it at his home.

As weather conditions made it impossible to work, the three went home from the motel midweek. On the return trip the next day, Mr. Rambo was involved in an accident in which he did not report injuries immediately.

Several days later, Mr. Rambo and the foreman were called to a disciplinary meeting in which the latter was fired because he had not obtained permission to leave the motel midweek and go home. Mr. Rambo, who was not reprimanded, later went to a medical clinic with complaints of back pain and did not return to work. He was terminated a month later after not communicating with his employer regarding his absence.

Kelly denied Mr. Rambo’s workers compensation claim, contending that he was not acting within the course and scope of his employment when the accident occurred and that he had not suffered any injury.

An administrative judge denied the claim, stating that being a traveling employee did not make all travel accidents compensable. Acknowledging that Kelly had no written company policy prohibiting Mr. Rambo from leaving the work site, the judge found that the men did not have permission to leave Greenwood for personal reasons and had deviated from the course of employment by going home. A divided Workers’ Compensation Commission affirmed.

The Mississippi Court of Appeals explained that a “traveling employee” is one whose work takes him away from the employer’s premises. This category of employee may be exempt from the “going and coming” rule, which deems injuries incurred while in transit to or from a job as non-compensable, the court said, ruling this was not the case. Even though Kelly specifically provided transportation, the company prohibited employees from leaving the motel without permission, and his travels were a “deviation” from his work, the court said.

Four judges dissented, arguing that Mr. Rambo “was following the instructions of his direct supervisor when he drove home from the work site and then returned the following morning.”

WorkCompCentral is a sister publication of Business Insurance. More stories here.

 

 

 

Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine has approved legislation designed to close what lawmakers said was a loophole in workers compensation coverage for medical providers who are injured after being exposed to bodily fluids on medical helicopters.

The governor on Wednesday signed into law Senate Bill 106, which adds nurses and physicians to the list of employees eligible for workers comp for testing for bloodborne pathogens after being exposed to bodily fluids on air ambulance flights.

Until the change in law, pathogen testing expenses were covered for paramedics, emergency medical technicians and other first responders, but not for nurses and doctors, who are required by law to be present on medical flights.

Both the House and Senate had unanimously passed the bill in February. 

 

 

The U.S. Department of Labor said Wednesday that it has entered into a settlement agreement with a New York construction contractor who was cited after a worker died in December 2018.

East Patchogue-based Northridge Construction Corp. agreed to pay $144,000 in penalties and implement enhanced compliance policies to reduce workplace hazards as part of the settlement, the DOL said.

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Northridge Construction in June 2019 for willful and serious violations related to fall protection, struck-by and electrical hazards after a worker died after falling from the roof of a partially completed building in East Patchogue.

The company had contested the citations to the Occupational Safety and Health Review Commission.

The settlement upholds the citation. It also mandates that Northridge Construction owner Tim Kaywood implements all enhanced abatement measures to all companies he owns and manages, the DOL said.

The original penalty amount was $224,620.

In January, the company pleaded guilty to criminal counts related to the employee’s death. Sentencing is scheduled for April 3.

The maximum penalty for each criminal offense is five years’ probation and a $500,000 fine, according to the U.S. Justice Department. 

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Tuesday that it cited a New Jersey food manufacturer for allowing employees to service and clean equipment without proper safety procedures in place.

OSHA cited Vineland-based Aunt Kitty’s Food Inc., a subsidiary of Hanover Foods Corp., for one willful, two repeat and four serious violations and proposed $463,224 in penalties.

During a September 2023 complaint-driven investigation, inspectors found that the company lacked a procedure to ensure that machinery would not unexpectedly start during the cleaning process.

The company also failed to provide proper guarding on a conveyor system, train workers on lockout/tagout procedures and conduct annual machinery audits, OSHA said.

Aunt Kitty’s has 15 business days to contest the citation and proposed penalties. 

 

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to affect health care worker shortages, which is having an effect on treatment options in workers compensation, experts say.

For example, nursing turnover rose in the pandemic and is beginning to normalize to pre-pandemic levels, but it’s “still too high,” said Charles Kyles, director of workers’ compensation for Duke University & Health System in Durham, North Carolina.

Mr. Kyles was a panelist in a session of the Workers Compensation Research Institute’s annual Issues & Research conference last week in Boston. Issues addressed in the session on the employer outlook for 2024 ran the gamut from worker shortages to violence.

Workers comp claimants have been affected by provider shortages during the past few years, as fewer health practitioners meant limited care, Mr. Kyles said, adding the issue is still prevalent.

Some providers who previously agreed to treat workers comp patients are now declining to take on many claimants, leaving employers with injured workers in a difficult spot, he said.

The issue hit home for Duke, as university-affiliated physicians didn’t want to take workers comp cases — even those involving their own injured coworkers, Mr. Kyles said.

Experts say states’ medical fee schedules can also be a deterrent for some practitioners who feel it’s not lucrative enough to accept workers comp patients.

Some providers don’t understand the “complexities of seeing patients in the workers compensation system,” said Sharon DelGuercio, senior manager of workers compensation for Walt Disney World Resort in Orlando, Florida.

“It’s something as an industry that we need to focus on,” said Ms. DelGuercio, who also spoke during the employer outlook session.

An upside post-pandemic, the panelists said, has been improved return-to-work options for injured employees.

“We collaborate very strongly with the store managers, and the nurses are part of that,” said Michele Maffei, Tampa, Florida-based director of workers compensation for Publix Supermarkets Inc., a southern U.S. grocery store chain.

Publix, she said, has even been successful with bringing amputees back to work.

Another issue the employer community has grappled with, especially post-pandemic, is the increase in workplace violence, something that has been a trending topic in workers compensation.

Mr. Kyles called it a “rising concern,” saying such incidents seemed to increase as more people returned to the workforce in the past year or so.

Workplace violence ranges from verbal abuse and minor fights to more serious physical assaults, Mr. Kyles said. Duke has a workplace violence task force that is gathering data “to attack all the different angles of this problem” so it becomes more manageable for risk professionals, he said.  

Publix has had its share of workplace violence problems, Ms. Maffei said.

“No grocery store, retail chain, can not be affected by it,” she said. “I think in general the world is seeing more violence.”

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Monday that it cited a Pennsylvania metal finishing company after a worker was killed in a workplace accident in September 2023.

OSHA cited Valencia-based Vorteq Coil Finishers LLC for two willful and two serious violations for failing to implement lockout/tagout procedures and not installing machine guarding. The agency proposed $345,685 in penalties.

The worker was cleaning a chrome roller on a coater machine when he was pulled into the device and suffered fatal injuries.

The agency said Vorteq knew of the dangers posed in cleaning the machine as it was in operation but that supervisors failed to take steps to protect workers.

OSHA also placed the company in its Severe Violator Enforcement Program.

Vorteq has 15 business days to contest the citation and proposed penalties.

Rhode Island lawmakers are considering a bill that would provide worker protections against psychological abuse in the workplace, calling for various reporting requirements to state agencies and the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

H.B. 8044, introduced Thursday and referred to the House Labor Committee, would require employers to educate their employees on bullying and toxic work environments, and would require companies to conduct an anonymous workplace climate survey annually, which would need to be filed with the state labor officials and federal OSHA.

The bill also states that employers would be required to provide “legal relief and remedy for employees harmed psychologically, emotionally, physically, professionally, or economically by exposure to an unsafe, toxic work environment, including any subsequent damages to make employees whole.”

 

 

The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said Friday that it cited a Georgia chemical manufacturer for 67 serious violations after workers were found exposed to numerous chemical and other hazards.

OSHA cited Atlanta-based Southern Industrial Chemicals Inc., which operates as SIC Technologies, after investigators discovered a slew of safety and health violations during multiple workplace inspections between August and November 2023.

The agency proposed $289,439 in penalties.

The violations included, but were not limited to, failures to provide engineering controls to reduce employee exposure to hexavalent chromium, establish and implement a respiratory protection program, develop a comprehensive hazard communication program for the handling of dangerous chemicals, and provide changing rooms for contaminated protective clothing and providing eye flushing facilities.

The company has 15 business days to contest the citation and proposed penalties.